Transcribed by Ruth Hart ruthhart@twilightoracle.com

Transcriber's notes:

While most of the book titles and non-English words are italicized, not all of them are, and I have left the non-italicized terms as is.

Page numbers have been placed in sqare brackets to facilitate the use of the table of contents and the index.

HERBAL SIMPLES APPROVED FOR MODERN USES OF CURE

by

W. T. FERNIE, M.D.
Author of "Botanical Outlines," etc_

Second Edition.

"Medicine is mine; what herbs and Simples grow
In fields and forests, all their powers I know."
DRYDEN.

Philadelphia: Boericke & Tafel. 1897.

"Jamque aderat Phoebo ante alios dilectus lapis
Iasides: acri quondam cui captus amore
Ipse suas artes, sua munera, laetus Apollo
Augurium, citharamque dabat, celeresque sagittas
Ille ut depositi proferret fata clientis,
Scire potestates herbarum, usumque medendi
Maluit, et mutas agitare inglorius artes."
VIRGIL, AEnid: Libr. xii. v. 391-8.

"And now lapis had appeared,
Blest leech! to Phoebus'-self endeared
Beyond all men below;
On whom the fond, indulgent God
His augury had fain bestowed,
His lyre-his sounding bow!
But he, the further to prolong
A fellow creature's span,
The humbler art of Medicine chose,
The knowledge of each plant that grows,
Plying a craft not known to song,
An unambitious man!"

[vii]

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

It may happen that one or another enquirer taking up this book will ask, to begin with, "What is a Herbal Simple?" The English word "Simple," composed of two Latin words, Singula plica (a single fold), means "Singleness," whether of material or purpose.

From primitive times the term "Herbal Simple" has been applied to any homely curative remedy consisting of one ingredient only, and that of a vegetable nature. Many such a native medicine found favour and success with our single-minded forefathers, this being the "reverent simplicity of ancienter times."

In our own nursery days, as we now fondly remember, it was: "Simple Simon met a pieman going to the fair; said Simple Simon to the pieman, 'Let me taste your ware.'" That ingenuous youth had but one idea, connected simply with his stomach; and his sole thought was how to devour the contents of the pieman's tin. We venture to hope our readers may be equally eager to stock their minds with the sound knowledge of Herbal Simples which this modest Manual seeks to provide for their use.

Healing by herbs has always been popular both [xviii] with the classic nations of old, and with the British islanders of more recent times. Two hundred and sixty years before the date of Hippocrates (460 B.C.) the prophet Isaiah bade King Hezekiah, when sick unto death, "take a lump of Figs, and lay it on the boil; and straightway the King recovered."

Iapis, the favourite pupil of Apollo, was offered endowments of skill in augury, music, or archery. But he preferred to acquire a knowledge of herbs for service of cure in sickness; and, armed with this knowledge, he saved the life of AEneas when grievously wounded by an arrow. He averted the hero's death by applying the plant "Dittany," smooth of leaf, and purple of blossom, as plucked on the mountain Ida.

It is told in Malvern Chase that Mary of Eldersfield (1454), "whom some called a witch," famous for her knowledge of herbs and medicaments, "descending the hill from her hut, with a small phial of oil, and a bunch of the 'Danewort,' speedily enabled Lord Edward of March, who had just then heavily sprained his knee, to avoid danger by mounting 'Roan Roland' freed from pain, as it were by magic, through the plant-rubbing which Mary administered."

In Shakespeare's time there was a London street, named Bucklersbury (near the present Mansion House), noted for its number of druggists who sold Simples and sweet-smelling herbs. We read, in [ix] The Merry Wives of Windsor, that Sir John Falstaff flouted the effeminate fops of his day as "Lisping hawthorn buds that smell like Bucklersbury in simple time."

Various British herbalists have produced works, more or less learned and voluminous, about our native medicinal plants; but no author has hitherto radically explained the why and where fore of their ultimate curative action. In common with their early predecessors, these several writers have recognised the healing virtues of the herbs, but have failed to explore the chemical principles on which such virtues depend. Some have attributed the herbal properties to the planets which rule their growth. Others have associated the remedial herbs with certain cognate colours, ordaining red flowers for disorders of the blood, and yellow for those of the liver. "The exorcised demon of jaundice," says Conway, "was consigned to yellow parrots; that of inflammatory disease to scarlet, or red weeds." Again, other herbalists have selected their healing plants on the doctrine of allied signatures, choosing, for instance, the Viper's Bugloss as effectual against venomous bites, because of its resembling a snake; and the sweet little English Eyebright, which shows a dark pupil in the centre white ocular corolla, as of signal benefit for inflamed eyes.

Thus it has continued to happen that until the [x] last half-century Herbal Physic has remained only speculative and experimental, instead of gaining a solid foothold in the field of medical science. Its claims have been merely empirical, and its curative methods those of a blind art:—

"Si vis curari, de morbo nescio quali,
Accipias herbam; sed quale nescio; nec quâ
Ponas; nescio quo; curabere, nescio quando."

Your sore, I know not what, be not foreslow
To cure with herbs, which, where, I do not know;
Place them, well pounc't, I know not how, and then
You shall be perfect whole, I know not when."

Happily now-a-days, as our French neighbours would say, Nous avons changé tout cela, "Old things are passed away; behold all things are become new!" Herbal Simples stand to-day safely determined on sure ground by the help of the accurate chemist. They hold their own with the best, and rank high for homely cures, because of their proved constituents. Their manifest healing virtues are shown to depend on medicinal elements plainly disclosed by analysis. Henceforward the curtain of oblivion must fall on cordial waters distilled mechanically from sweet herbs, and on electuaries artlessly compounded of seeds and roots by a Lady Monmouth, or a Countess of Arundel, as in the Stuart and Tudor times. Our Herbal Simples are fairly entitled at last to independent promotion from the shelves of the amateur still-room, from [xi] the rustic ventures of the village grandam, and from the shallow practices of self styled botanical doctors in the back streets of our cities.

"I do remember an apothecary,—
And hereabouts he dwells,—whom late I noted
In tatter'd weeds, with overwhelming brows,
Culling of Simples; meagre were his looks;
And in his needy shop a tortoise hung,
An alligator stuff'd, and other skins
Of ill-shap'd fishes; and about his shelves
A beggarly account of empty boxes,
Green earthen pots, bladders, and musty seeds,
Remnants of packthread, and old cakes of roses
Were thinly scattered to make up a show."
Romeo and Juliet, Act V. Sc. 1.

Chemically assured, therefore, of the sterling curative powers which our Herbal Simples possess, and anxious to expound them with a competent pen, the present author approaches his task with a zealous purpose, taking as his pattern, from the Comus of Milton:—

"A certain shepherd lad
Of small regard to see to, yet well skilled
In every virtuous plant, and healing herb;
He would beg me sing;
Which, when I did, he on the tender grass
Would sit, and hearken even to constancy;
And in requital ope his leathern scrip,
And show me Simples, of a thousand names,
Telling their strange, and vigorous faculties."

Shakespeare said, three centuries ago, "throw physic to the dogs." But prior to him, one Doctor Key, self styled Caius, had written in the Latin [xii] tongue (tempore Henry VIII.), a Medical History of the British Canine Race. His book became popular, though abounding in false concords; insomuch that from then until now medical classics have been held by scholars in poor repute for grammar, and sound construction. Notwithstanding which risk, many a passage is quoted here of ancient Herbal lore in the past tongues of Greece, Rome; and the Gauls. It is fondly hoped that the apt lines thus borrowed from old faultless sources will escape reproach for a defective modern rendering in Dog Latin, Mongrel Greek, or the "French of Stratford atte bowe."

Lastly, quaint old Fuller shall lend an appropriate Epilogue. "I stand ready," said he (1672), "with a pencil in one hand, and a spunge in the other, to add, alter, insert, efface, enlarge, and delete, according to better information. And if these my pains shall be found worthy to passe a second Impression, my faults I will confess with shame, and amend with thankfulnesse, to such as will contribute clearer intelligence unto me."

1895.

[xiii]

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

On its First Reading, a Bill drafted in Parliament meets with acquiescence from the House on both sides mainly because its merits and demerits are to be more deliberately questioned when it comes up again in the future for a second closer Reading, Meanwhile, its faults can be amended, and its omissions supplied: fresh clauses can be introduced: and the whole scheme of the Bill can be better adapted to the spirit of the House inferred from its first reception.

In somewhat similar fashion the Second Edition of "Herbal Simples" is now submitted to a Parliament of readers with the belief that its ultimate success, or failure of purpose, is to depend on its present revised contents, and the amplified scope of its chapters.

The criticism which public journalists, not a few, thought proper to pass on its First Edition have been attentively considered herein. It is true their comments were in some cases so conflicting as to be difficult of practical appliance. The fabled old man and his ass stand always in traditional warning against futile attempts to satisfy inconsistent objectors, or to carry into effect suggestions made by irreconcilable censors. "Quot homines, tot [xiv] sententioe," is an adage signally verified when a fresh venture is made on the waters of chartered opinion. How shall the perplexed navigator steer his course when monitors in office accuse him on the one hand of lax precision throughout, and belaud him on the other for careful observance of detail? Or how shall he trim his sails when a contemptuous Standard-bearer, strangely uninformed on the point, ignores, as a leader of any repute, "one Gerard," a former famous Captain of the Herbal fleet? With the would-be Spectator's lament that Gerard's graphic drawings are regrettedly wanting here, the author is fain to concur. He feels that the absence of appropriate cuts to depict the various herbs is quite a deficiency: but the hope is inspired that a still future Edition may serve to supply this need. Certain botanical mistakes pointed out with authority by the _Pharmaceutical Journal _have here been duly corrected: and as many as fifty additional Simples will be found described in the present Enlarged Edition. At the same time a higher claim than hitherto made for the paramount importance of the whole subject is now courageously advanced.

To all who accept as literal truth the Scriptural account of the Garden of Eden it must be evident how intimately man's welfare from the first was made to depend on his uses of trees and herbs. The labour of earning his bread in the sweat of his brow by tilling the ground: and the penalty of [xv] and thistles produced thereupon, were alike incurred by Eve's disobedience in plucking the forbidden fruit: and a signified possibility of man's eventful share in the tree of life, to "put forth his hand, and eat, and live for ever," has been more than vaguely revealed. So that with almost a sacred mission, and with an exalted motive of supreme usefulness, this Manual of healing Herbs is published anew, to reach, it is hoped, and to rescue many an ailing mortal.

Against its main principle an objection has been speciously raised, which at first sight appears of subversive weight; though, when further examined, it is found to be clearly fallacious. By an able but carping critic it was alleged that the mere chemical analysis of old-fashioned Herbal Simples makes their medicinal actions no less empirical than before: and that a pedantic knowledge of their constituent parts, invested with fine technical names, gives them no more scientific a position than that which our fathers understood.

But, taking, for instance, the herb Rue, which was formerly brought into Court to protect a and the Bench from gaol fever, and other infectious disease; no one knew at the time by what particular virtue the Rue could exercise this salutary power. But more recent research has taught, that the essential oil contained in this, and other allied aromatic herbs, such as Elecampane, [xvi] Rosemary, and Cinnamon, serves by its germicidal principles (stearoptens, methyl-ethers, and camphors), to extinguish bacterial life which underlies all contagion. In a parallel way the antiseptic diffusible oils of Pine, Peppermint, and Thyme, are likewise employed with marked success for inhalation into the lungs by consumptive patients. Their volatile vapours reach remote parts of the diseased air-passages, and heal by destroying the morbid germs which perpetuate mischief therein. It need scarcely be said the very existence of these causative microbes, much less any mode of cure by their abolishment, was quite unknown to former Herbal Simplers.

Again, in past times a large number of our native, plants acquired a well-deserved, but purely empirical celebrity, for curing scrofula and scurvy. But later discovery has shown that each of these several herbs contains lime, and earthy salts, in a subtle form of high natural sub-division: whilst, at the same time, the law of cure by medicinal similars has established the cognate fact that to those who inherit a strumous taint, infinitesimal doses of these earth salts are incontestably curative. The parents had first undergone a gradual impairment of health because of calcareous matters to excess in their general conditions of sustenance; and the lime proves potent to cure in the offspring what, through the parental surfeit, was entailed as [xvii] a heritage of disease. Just in the same way the mineral waters of Missisquoi, and Bethesda, in America, through containing siliceous qualities so sublimated as almost to defy the analyst, are effective to cure cancer, albuminuria, and other organic complaints.

Nor is this by any means a new policy of cure. Its barbaric practice has long since obtained, even in African wilds, where the native snake doctor inoculates with his prepared snake poison to save the life of a victim otherwise fatally bitten by another snake of the same deadly virus. To Ovid, of Roman fame (20 B.C.), the same sanative axiom was also indisputably known as we learn from his lines:—

"Tunc observatas augur descendit in herbas;
Usus et auxilio est anguis ab angue dato."

"Then searched the Augur low mid grass close scanned
For snake to heal a snake-envenomed hand."

And with equal cogency other arguments, which are manifold, might be readily adduced, as of congruous force, to vindicate our claim in favour of analytical knowledge over blind experience in the methods of Herbal cure, especially if this be pursued on the broad lines of enlightened practice by similars.

So now, to be brief, and to change our allegory, "on the banks of the Nile," as Mrs. Malaprop would have pervertingly put it, with "a nice [xviii] derangement of epitaphs," we invite our many guests to a simple "dinner of herbs." Such was man's primitive food in Paradise: "every green herb bearing seed, and every tree in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed:" "the green herb for meat for every beast of the earth, and every fowl of the air." What better Preface can we indite than a grace to be said before sitting down to the meal? "Sallets," it is hoped, will be found "in the lines to make the matter savoury." Far be it from our object to preach a prelude of texts, or to weary those at our board I with a meaningless long benediction. "'Tis not so plain as the old Hill of Howth," said tender-hearted witty Tom Hood, with serio-comic truth, "a man has got his belly full of meat, because he talks with victuals in his mouth." Rather would we choose the "russet Yeas and honest kersey Noes" of sturdy yeoman speech; and cheerfully taking the head of our well-stocked table, ask in homely terms that "God will bless these the good creatures of His Herbal Simples to our saving uses, and us to His grateful service."

1897.

[xix]

CONTENTS.

Absinthe . . . 614
Acorn . . . 15
Agaric, Fly . . . 368
Agrimony . . . 18
Alexanders . . . 313
Allspice . . . 386
Amadou . . . 378
Anemone, Wood . . . 20
Angelica . . . 23
Aniseed . . . 24
Apple . . . 26
Arsmart . . . 606
Artichoke, Globe . . . 548
" Jerusalem . . . 549
Arum . . . 33
Asafetida . . . 269
Ash, Mountain . . . 350
Asparagus . . . 35
Asphodel, Bog . . . 482
Avens . . . 47

Balm . . . 39
Barberry . . . 42
Barley . . . 44
Basil, Sweet . . . 45
Bean . . . 415
Bedstraw . . . 231
Bee sting . . . 260
Beet . . . 507
Belladonna . . . 388
Bennet Herb . . . 47
Betony, Water . . . 50, 198
" Wood . . . 42
Bilberry . . . 652
Bistort, Great . . . 607
Blackberry . . . 53
Black Pot Herb . . . 312
Blackthorn . . . 517
Bladderwrack . . . 503
Blessed Thistle . . . 557
Blue Bell . . . 57
Bog Bean . . . 58
Borage . . . 60
Bracken . . . 184
Brooklime . . . 431
Broom . . . 62
Bryony, Black . . . 68
" White . . . 65
Buckthorn . . . 69
Bugle . . . 510
Bullace . . . 520
Bulrush . . . 481
Burdock . . . 162
Burnet Saxifrage . . . 430
Butcher's Broom . . . 64
Butterbur . . . 119
Buttercup . . . 71

Cabbage . . . 74
" Sea . . . 76
Calamint . . . 343
Camphor . . . 337
Capsicum . . . 78
Caraway . . . 81
Carline Thistle . . . 558
Carraigeen Moss . . . 500
Carrot . . . 88
Cascara Sagrada . . . 70
Cat Mint . . . 344
Cat Thyme . . . 565
Cat's Tail . . . 482
[xx] Celandine, Greater . . . 92
" Lesser . . . 90
Celery . . . 94
Centaury . . . 96
Chamomile . . . 84
" Bitter . . . 86
Cherry . . . 98
Chervil . . . 100
Chestnut, Horse . . . 102
" Sweet . . . 104
Chickweed . . . 105
Chicory . . . 542
Christmas Rose . . . 107
Cider . . . 30
Cinnamon . . . 390
Cinquefoil, Creeping . . . 516
Clary . . . 492
Cleavers . . . 230
Clover, Meadow . . . 110
" Sweet . . . 112
Clovers . . . 395
Club Moss . . . 113
Colchicum . . . 483
Coltsfoot . . . 116
Comfrey . . . 120, 595
" Prickly . . . 122
Coriander . . . 122
Couch Grass . . . 242
Cow . . . 126
Cowslip . . . 124
Crab Apple . . . 29
Cresses . . . 127
Cress, Garden . . . 128
" Water . . . 129
Crowfoot . . . 71
Cuckoo Flower . . . 134
Cuckoo Pint . . . 33
Cumin . . . 135
Currants, Red, White, and Black . . . 137

Daffodil . . . 141
Daisy . . . 143
Damson . . . 520
Dandelion . . . 147
Darnel . . . 242
Date . . . 152
Dill . . . 155
Dock . . . 157
" Great Water . . . 164
" Yellow Curled . . . 163
Dodder . . . 112
Dog's Mercury . . . 332
Dropwort, Water . . . 603
Dulse . . . 501

Earthnut . . . 372
Egg . . . 150
Elder . . . 164
" Dwarf . . . 171
Elecampane . . . 172
Eryngo . . . 499
Eyebright . . . 175

Fairy rings . . . 374
Fennel . . . 179
" Water . . . 604
Ferns . . . 182
" Female (Bracken) . . . 184
" Hart's-tongue . . . 187
" Maidenhair . . . 188
" Male . . . 183
" Polypody . . . 189
" Royal . . . 186
" Spleenwort . . . 190
" Wall Rue . . . 191
Feverfew . . . 192
Fig . . . 194
Figwort . . . 54
Flag, Blue . . . 199
" Yellow . . . 200
" Stinking (Gladdon) . . . 201
" Sweet . . . 201, 480
Flax . . . 202
" Purging . . . 204
Fly Agaric . . . 368
Foxglove . . . 205
Fumitory . . . 201
Furze . . . 63

Gage, Green . . . 521
Garlic . . . 214
" Poor Man's . . . 222
Ginger . . . 392
Gipsy Wort (Water Hore-hound) . . . 269
[xxi] Good King Henry . . . 227
Gooseberry . . . 223
Goosefoot . . . 227
" Stinking . . . 229
Goosegrass . . . 230
Goutweed . . . 235
Grapes . . . 236
Grasses . . . 241
Ground Ivy . . . 283
Groundsel . . . 243

Hawthorn . . . 245
Hellebore, Stinking . . . 109
Hemlock . . . 248
" Water . . . 251
Hemp Agrimony . . . 19
Henbane . . . 252
Herb, Bennet . . . 47
Hoglouse . . . 564
Honey . . . 256
Hop . . . 262
Horehound, Black . . . 268
" White . . . 267
Horse Radish . . . 269
House Leek . . . 273
Hyssop . . . 277
" Hedge . . . 279

Iceland Moss . . . 500
Irish Moss . . . 500
Ivy . . . 280
" Ground . . . 283

John's Wort, Saint . . . 287
Juniper . . . 291

Knapweed, the Lesser . . . 296

Ladies' Mantle . . . 511
" Smock . . . 134
Lavender . . . 296
" Sea . . . 300
Laver . . . 505
Leek . . . 220
Lemon . . . 300
Lentil . . . 305
Lettuce . . . 308
Lettuce, Lamb's . . . 312
" Wild . . . 307
Lily of the Valley 313
Lily, Water . . . 604
Lime Tree . . . 316
Linseed . . . 202
Liquorice . . . 318
Lords and Ladies (Arum) . . . 33
Lungwort . . . 594
Lupine . . . 306

Mace . . . 395
Mace Reed . . . 482
Mallow . . . 322
" Marsh . . . 323
" Musk . . . 325
Mandrake . . . 66
Marigold . . . 327
" Corn . . . 326
" Marsh . . . 329
Marjoram . . . 331
Melancholy Thistle . . . 560
Menthol . . . 339
Mercury, Dog's . . . 332
" English . . . 228
Milk Thistle . . . 556
Mints . . . 333
Mistletoe . . . 345
Monk's Rhubarb . . . 159
Moon Daisy . . . 146
Moss, Club . . . 113
" Iceland . . . 500
" Irish . . . 500
Mountain Ash . . . 350
Mugwort . . . 352
Mulberry . . . 356
Mullein . . . 359
Mum . . . 581
Mushrooms . . . 362
Mustard . . . 375
" Hedge . . . 222, 381

Nasturtium . . . 132
Nettle . . . 382
" Dead . . . 387
Night Shade, Deadly . . . 388
Nutmeg . . . 393
Nuts . . . 602

[xxii] Oak Bark . . . 16
Oat . . . 397
Onion . . . 209
Orach . . . 229
Orange . . . 399
Orchids . . . 404
Orpine (Live Long) . . . 276
Ox eye Daisy . . . 146

Pansy, Wild . . . 589
Parsley . . . 407
" Fool's . . . 412
Parsnip . . . 413
" Water . . . 414
Pea . . . 416
Peach . . . 418
Pear . . . 419
Pellitory of Spain . . . 424
" of Wall . . . 423
Pennyroyal . . . 334
Peppermint . . . 338
Pepper, Water . . . 606
Periwinkle, Greater . . . 427
" Lesser . . . 428
Perry . . . 422
Pilewort . . . 90
Pimento, Allspice . . . 386
Pimpernel . . . 428
Pine . . . 576
Pink . . . 432
Plantain, Greater . . . 433
" Ribwort . . . 435
" Water . . . 435
Plum, Common . . . 520
" Wild . . . 520
Polypody Fern . . . 190
Poppy, Scarlet . . . 437
" Welsh . . . 441
" White . . . 438
Potato . . . 441
Primrose . . . 447
" Evening . . . 449
Primula . . . 449
Prune . . . 522
Prunella . . . 509
Psyllium Seeds . . . 436
Puff Ball . . . 365
Pulsatilla . . . 20

Quince . . . 452

Radish . . . 455
" Horse . . . 269
Ragwort . . . 457
Ransoms . . . 221
Raspberry . . . 459
Reed, Sweet Scented . . . 480
Rest Harrow . . . 320
Rhubarb, Garden . . . 159
Rice . . . 461
Rosemary . . . 470
" Wild . . . 474
Roses . . . 463
" Rock . . . 469
Rue . . . 475
Rushes . . . 479

Saffron . . . 485
" Meadow . . . 483
Sage . . . 489
" Meadow . . . 492
Sago . . . 155
Saint John's Wort . . . 287
Salep . . . 405
Saliva . . . 178
Samphire . . . 497
Sanicle . . . 508
Saucealone . . . 222
Savin . . . 493
Schalot . . . 222
Scurvy Grass . . . 133, 495
Sea Holly . . . 498
" Tang . . . 502
" Water . . . 508
" Weeds . . . 496
Selfheal . . . 508
Service Tree . . . 352
Shepherd's Purse . . . 511
Silverweed . . . 514
Skullcap . . . 516
" the Lesser . . . 517
Sloe . . . 517
Snails . . . 409
Soapwort . . . 522
Solomon's Seal . . . 524
Sorrel . . . 160
" Wood . . . 161
Southernwood . . . 526
Sowbread . . . 450
Sow Thistle . . . 559
Spearmint . . . 342
Speedwell . . . 527
Spinach . . . 529
" Sea . . . 506
Spindle Tree . . . 530
Spurge Wood . . . 532
" Petty . . . 602
Stitchwort . . . 535
Stonecrop (House Leek) . . . 276
Strawberry . . . 538
" Wild . . . 537
Succory . . . 541
Sundew . . . 543
Sunflower . . . 546

Tamarind . . . 550
Tansy . . . 552
Tar . . . 580
Tarragon . . . 554
Teasel, Fuller's . . . 559
" Wild . . . 559
Thistles . . . 555
Thyme . . . 560
Thymol . . . 563
Toadflax . . . 565
Toadstool . . . 372
Tomato . . . 567
Tormentil . . . 573
Truffle . . . 371
Turnip . . . 574
Turpentine . . . 576
Tutsan . . . 290

Valerian, Red . . . 585
" Wild . . . 583
Verbena (Vervain) . . . 586
Verguice . . . 29, 238
Vernal grass . . . 241
Vine . . . 240, 588
Violet, Sweet . . . 592
" Wild . . . 589
Viper's Bugloss . . . 594

Wallflower . . . 595
Walnut . . . 597
" American . . . 601
Wartwort . . . 602
Watercress . . . 129
Water Dropwort . . . 603
" Figwort . . . 198
" Horehound . . . 269
" Lily, White . . . 605
" Yellow . . . 605
" Pepper . . . 606
Whitethorn . . . 245
Whortleberry . . . 52
Woodruff, Sweet . . . 608
" Squinancy . . . 609
Wood Sorrel . . . 161, 610
Wormwood . . . 355, 612
Woundwort, Hedge . . . 615

Yarrow 616
Yew 619

[1] INTRODUCTION.

The art of _Simpling _is as old with us as our British hills. It aims at curing common ailments with simple remedies culled from the soil, or got from home resources near at hand.

Since the days of the Anglo-Saxons such remedies have been chiefly herbal; insomuch that the word "drug" came originally from their verb drigan, to dry, as applied to medicinal plants.

These primitive Simplers were guided in their choice of herbs partly by watching animals who sought them out for self-cure, and partly by discovering for themselves the sensible properties of the plants as revealed by their odour and taste; also by their supposed resemblance to those diseases which nature meant them to heal.

John Evelyn relates in his Acetaria (1725) that "one Signor Faquinto, physician to Queen Anne (mother to the beloved martyr, Charles the First), and formerly physician to one of the Popes, observing scurvy and dropsy to be the epidemical and dominant diseases [2] of this nation, went himself into the hundreds of Essex, reputed the most unhealthy county of this island, and used to follow the sheep and cattle on purpose to observe what plants they chiefly fed upon; and of these Simples he composed an excellent electuary of marvellous effects against these same obnoxious infirmities." Also, in like manner, it was noticed by others that "the dog, if out of condition, would seek for certain grasses of an emetic or purgative sort; sheep and cows, when ill, would devour curative plants; an animal suffering from rheumatism would remain as much as it could in the sunshine; and creatures infested by parasites would roll themselves frequently in the dust." Again, William Coles in his Nature's Paradise, or, Art of Simpling (1657), wrote thus: "Though sin and Sathan have plunged mankinde into an ocean of infirmities, jet the mercy of God, which is over all His works, maketh grass to grow upon the mountaines, and Herbes for the use of men; and hath not only stamped upon them a distinct forme, but also given them particular signatures, whereby a man may read even in legible characters the use of them."

The present manual of our native Herbal Simples seeks rather to justify their uses on the sound basis of accurate chemical analysis, and precise elementary research. Hitherto medicinal herbs have come down to us from early times as possessing only a traditional value, and as exercising merely empirical effects. Their selection has been commended solely by a shrewd discernment, and by the practice of successive centuries. But to-day a closer analysis in the laboratory, and skilled provings by experts have resolved the several plants into their component parts, and have chemically determined the medicinal nature of these parts, both [3] singly and collectively. So that the study and practice of curative British herbs may now fairly take rank as an exact science, and may command the full confidence of the sick for supplying trustworthy aid and succour in their times of bodily need.

Scientific reasons which are self-convincing may be readily adduced for prescribing all our best known native herbal medicines. Among them the Elder, Parsley, Peppermint, and Watercress may be taken as familiar examples of this leading fact. Almost from time immemorial in England a "rob" made from the juice of Elderberries simmered and thickened with sugar, or mulled Elder wine concocted from the fruit, with raisins, sugar, and spices, has been a popular remedy in this country, if taken hot at bedtime, for a recent cold, or for a sore throat. But only of late has chemistry explained that Elderberries furnish "viburnic acid," which induces sweating, and is specially curative of inflammatory bronchial soreness. So likewise Parsley, besides being a favourite pot herb, and a garnish for cold meats, has been long popular in rural districts as a tea for catarrh of the bladder or kidneys; whilst the bruised leaves have been extolled as a poultice for swellings and open sores. At the same time, a saying about the herb has commonly prevailed that it "brings death to men, and salvation to women." Not, however, until recently has it been learnt that the sweet-smelling plant yields what chemists call "apiol," or Parsley-Camphor, which, when given in moderation, exercises a quieting influence on the main sensific centres of life—the head and the spine. Thereby any feverish irritability of the urinary organs inflicted by cold, or other nervous shock, would be subordinately allayed. Thus likewise the Parsley-Camphor (whilst serving, [4] when applied externally, to usefully stimulate indolent wounds) proves especially beneficial for female irregularities of the womb, as was first shown by certain French doctors in 1849.

Again, with respect to Peppermint, its cordial water, or its lozenges taken as a confection, have been popular from the days of our grandmothers for the relief of colic in the bowels, or for the stomach-ache of flatulent indigestion. But this practice has obtained simply because the pungent herb was found to diffuse grateful aromatic warmth within the stomach and bowels, whilst promoting the expulsion of wind; whereas we now know that an active principle "menthol" contained in the plant, and which may be extracted from it as a camphoraceous oil, possesses in a marked degree antiseptic and sedative properties which are chemically hostile to putrescence, and preventive of dyspeptic fermentation.

Lastly, the Watercress has for many years held credit with the common people for curing scurvy and its allied ailments; while its juices have been further esteemed as of especial use in arresting tubercular consumption of the lungs; and yet it has remained for recent analysis to show that the Watercress is chemically rich in "antiscorbutic salts," which tend to destroy the germs of tubercular disease, and which strike at the root of scurvy generally. These salts and remedial principles are "sulphur," "iodine," "potash," "phosphatic earths," and a particular volatile essential oil known as "sulphocyanide of allyl," which is almost identical with the essential oil of White Mustard.

Moreover, many of the chief Herbal Simples indigenous to Great Britain are further entitled for a still stronger reason to the fullest confidence of both doctor [5] and patient. It has been found that when taken experimentally in varying quantities by healthy provers, many single medicines will produce symptoms precisely according with those of definite recognized maladies; and the same herbs, if administered curatively, in doses sufficiently small to avoid producing their toxical effects, will speedily and surely restore the patient to health by dispelling the said maladies. Good instances of such homologous cures are afforded by the common Buttercup, the wild Pansy, and the Sundew of our boggy marshes. It is widely known that the field Buttercup (Ranunculus bulbosus), when pulled from the ground, and carried in the palm of the hand, will redden and inflame the skin by the acrimony of its juices; or, if the bruised leaves are applied to any part they will excite a blistering of the outer cuticle, with a discharge of watery fluid from numerous small vesicles, whilst the tissues beneath become red, hot, and swollen; and these combined symptoms precisely represent "shingles,"—a painful skin disease given to arise from a depraved state of the bodily system, and from a faulty supply of nervous force. These shingles appear as a crop of sore angry blisters, which commonly surround the walls of the chest either in part or entirely; and modern medicine teaches that a medicinal tincture of the Buttercup, if taken in small doses, and applied, will promptly and effectively cure the same troublesome ailment; whilst it will further serve to banish a neuralgic or rheumatic stitch occurring in the side from any other cause.

And so with respect to the Wild Pansy (Viola tricolor), we read in Hahnemann's commentary on the proved plant: "The Pansy Violet excites certain cutaneous eruptions about the head and face, a hard thick scab being formed, which is cracked here and there, and [6] from which a tenacious yellow matter exudes, and hardens into a substance like gum." This is an accurate picture of the diseased state seen often affecting the scalp of unhealthy children, as milk-crust, or, when aggravated, as a disfiguring eczema, and concerning the same Dr. Hughes of Brighton, in his authoritative modern treatise, says, "I have rarely needed any other medicine than the Viola tricolor for curing milk-crust, which is the plague of children," and "I have given it in the adult for recent impetigo (a similar disease of the skin), with very satisfactory results."

Finally, the Sundew (Drosera rotundifolia), which is a common little plant growing on our bogs, and marshy places, is found to act in the same double fashion of cause or cure according to the quantity taken, or administered. Farmers well know that this small herb when devoured by sheep in their pasturage will bring about a violent chronic cough, with waste of substance: whilst the Sundew when given experimentally to cats has been found to stud the surface of their lungs with morbid tubercular matter, though this is a form of disease to which cats are not otherwise liable. In like manner healthy human provers have become hoarse of voice through taking the plant, and troubled with a severe cough, accompanied with the expectoration of abundant yellow mucus, just as in tubercular mischief beginning at the windpipe. Meantime it has been well demonstrated (by Dr. Curie, and others) that at the onset of pulmonary consumption in the human subject a cure may nearly always be brought about, or the symptoms materially improved, by giving the tincture of Sundew throughout several weeks—from four to twenty drops in the twenty-four hours. And it has further become an established fact that the same tincture [7] will serve with remarkable success to allay the troublesome spasms of Whooping Cough in its second stage, if given in small doses, repeated several times a day.

From these several examples, therefore, which are easy to be understood, we may fairly conclude that positive remedial actions are equally exercised by other Herbal Simples, both because of their chemical constituents and by reason of their curing in many cases according to the known law of medicinal correspondence.

Until of late no such an assured position could be rightly claimed by our native herbs, though pretentions in their favour have been widely popular since early English times. Indeed, Herbal physic has engaged the attention of many authors from the primitive days of Dioscorides (A.D. 60) to those of Elizabethan Gerard, whose exhaustive and delightful volume published in 1587 has remained ever since in paramount favour with the English people. Its quaint fascinating style, and its queer astrological notions, together with its admirable woodcuts of the plants described, have combined to make this comprehensive Herbal a standing favourite even to the present day.

Gerard had a large physic-garden near his house in Old Bourne (Holborn), and there is in the British Museum a letter drawn up by his hand asking Lord Burghley, his patron, to advise the establishment by the University of Cambridge in their grounds of a Simpling Herbarium. Nevertheless, we are now told (H. Lee, 1883) that Gerard's "ponderous book is little more than a translation of Dodonoeus, from which comparatively un-read author whole chapters have been taken verbatim without acknowledgment."

No English work on herbs and plants is met with prior to the sixteenth century. In 1552 all books on [8] astronomy and geography were ordered to be destroyed, because supposed to be infected with magic. And it is more than probable that any publications extant at that time on the virtues of herbs (then associated by many persons with witchcraft), underwent the same fate. In like manner King Hezekiah long ago "fearing lest the Herbals of Solomon should come into profane hands, caused them to be burned," as we learn from that "loyal and godly herbalist," Robert Turner.

During the reigns of Edward the Sixth and Mary, Dr. William Bulleyn ranked high as a physician and botanist. He wrote the first Boke of Simples, which remains among the most interesting literary productions of that era as a record of his acuteness and learning. It advocates the exclusive employment of our native herbal medicines. Again, Nicholas Culpeper, "student in physick," whose name is still a household word with many a plain thinking English person, published in 1652, for the benefit of the Commonwealth, his "Compleat Method whereby a man may cure himself being sick, for threepence charge, with such things only as grow in England, they being most fit for English bodies." Likewise in 1696 the Honourable Richard Boyle, F.R.S., published "A Collection of Choice, Safe, and Simple English Remedies, easily prepared, very useful in families, and fitted for the service of country people."

Once more, the noted John Wesley gave to the world in 1769 an admirable little treatise on Primitive Physic, or an Easy and Natural Method for Curing most Diseases; the medicines on which he chiefly relied being our native plants. For asthma, he advised the sufferer to "live a fortnight on boiled Carrots only"; for "baldness, to wash the head with a decoction of Boxwood"; [9] for "blood-spitting to drink the juice of Nettles"; for "an open cancer, to take freely of Clivers, or Goosegrass, whilst covering the sore with the bruised leaves of this herb"; and for an ague, to swallow at stated times "six middling pills of Cobweb."

In Wesley's day tradition only, with shrewd guesses and close observation, led him to prescribe these remedies. But now we have learnt by patient chemical research that the Wild Carrot possesses a particular volatile oil, which promotes copious expectoration for the relief of asthmatic cough; that the Nettle is endowed in its stinging hairs with "formic acid," which avails to arrest bleeding; that Boxwood yields "buxine," a specific stimulant to those nerves of supply which command the hair bulbs; that Goosegrass or Clivers is of astringent benefit in cancer, because of its "tannic," "citric," and "rubichloric acids"; and that the Spider's Web is of real curative value in ague, because it affords an albuminous principle "allied to and isomeric with quinine."

Long before this middle era in medicine, during quite primitive British times, the name and office of "Leeches" were familiar to the people as the first doctors of physic; and their parabilia or "accessibles" were worts from the field and the garden; so that when the Saxons obtained possession of Britain, they found it already cultivated and improved by what the Romans knew of agriculture and of vegetable productions. Hence it had happened that Rue, Hyssop, Fennel, Mustard, Elecampane, Southernwood, Celandine, Radish, Cummin, Onion, Lupin, Chervil, Fleur de Luce, Flax (probably), Rosemary, Savory, Lovage, Parsley, Coriander, Alexanders, or Olusatrum, the black pot herb, Savin, and other useful herbs, were already of common growth for kitchen uses, or for medicinal purposes.

[10] And as a remarkable incidental fact antiquity has bequeathed to us the legend, that goats were always exceptionally wise in the choice of these wholesome herbs; that they are, indeed, the herbalists among quadrupeds, and known to be "cunning in simples." From which notion has grown the idea that they are physicians among their kind, and that their odour is wholesome to the animals of the farmyard generally. So that in deference, unknowingly, to this superstition, it still happens that a single Nanny or a Betty is freakishly maintained in many a modern farmyard, living at ease, rather than put to any real use, or kept for any particular purpose of service. But in case of stables on fire, he or she will face the flames to make good an escape, and then the horses will follow.

It was through chewing the beans of Mocha, and becoming stupefied thereby, that unsuspicious goats first drew the attention of Mahomedan monks to the wonderful properties of the Coffee berry.

Next, coming down to the first part of the present century, we find that purveyors of medicinal and savoury herbs then wandered over the whole of England in quest of such useful simples as were in constant demand at most houses for the medicine-chest, the store-closet, or the toilet-table. These rustic practitioners of the healing art were known as "green men," who carried with them their portable apparatus for distilling essences, and for preparing their herbal extracts. In token of their having formerly officiated in this capacity, there may yet be seen in London and elsewhere about the country, taverns bearing the curious sign of "The Green Man and (his) Still."

It is told of a certain French writer not long since, that whilst complacently describing our British manners [11] customs, he gravely translated this legend of the into "L'homme vert, et tranquil."

Passing on finally to our own times at the close of the nineteenth century, we are able now-a-days, as has been already said, to avail ourselves of precise chemical research by apparatus far in advance of the untutored herbalist's still. He prepared his medicaments and his fragrant essences, merely as a mechanical art, and without pretending to fathom their method of physical action. But the skilled expert of to-day resolves his herbal simples into their ultimate elements by exact analysis in the laboratory, and has learnt to attach its proper medicinal virtue to each of these curative principles. It has thus come about that Herbal Physic under competent guidance, if pursued with intelligent care, is at length a reliable science of fixed methods, and crowned with sure results.

Moreover, in this happy way is at last vindicated the infinite superiority felt instinctively by our forefathers of home-grown herbs over foreign and far-fetched drugs; a superiority long since expressed by Ovid with classic felicity in the passage:—

"AEtas cui facimus aurea nomen,
Fructibus arbuteis, et humus quas educat herbis
Fortunata fuit."—Metamorphos., Lib. XV.

"Happy the age, to which we moderns give
The name of 'golden,' when men chose to live
On woodland fruits; and for their medicines took
Herbs from the field, and simples from the brook."

or, as epitomised in the time-worn Latin adage:—

"Qui potest mederi simplicibus frustra quaerit composita."

"If simple herbs suffice to cure,
'Tis vain to compound drugs endure."

In the following pages our leading Herbal Simples [12] are reviewed alphabetically; whilst, to ensure accuracy, the genus and species of each plant are particularised.

Most of these herbs may be gathered fresh in their proper season by persons who have acquired a knowledge of their parts, and who live in districts where such plants are to be found growing; and to other persons who inhabit towns, or who have no practical acquaintance with Botany, great facilities are now given by our principal druggists for obtaining from their stores concentrated fresh juices of the chief herbal simples.

Again, certain preparations of plants used only for their specific curative methods are to be got exclusively from the Homoeopathic chemist, unless gathered at first hand. These, not being officinal, fail to find a place on the shelves of the ordinary Pharmaceutical druggist. Nevertheless, when suitably employed, they are of singular efficacy in curing the maladies to which they stand akin by the law of similars. For convenience of distinction here, the symbol H. will follow such particular preparations, which number in all some seventy-five of the simples described. At the same time any of the more common extracts, juices, and tinctures (or the proper parts of the plants for making these several medicaments), may be readily purchased at the shop of every leading druggist.

It has not been thought expedient to include among the Simples for homely uses of cure such powerfully poisonous plants as Monkshood (Aconite), Deadly Nightshade (Belladonna), Foxglove (Digitalis), Hemlock or Henbane (except for some outward uses), and the like dangerous herbs, these being beyond the province of domestic medicine, whilst only to be administered under the advice and guidance of a qualified prescriber.

[13] The chief purpose held in view has been to reconsider those safe and sound herbal curative remedies and medicines which were formerly most in vogue as homely simples, whether to be taken or to be outwardly applied. And the main object has been to show with what confidence their uses may be now resumed, or retained under the guidance of modern chemical teachings, and of precise scientific provings. This question equally applies, whether the Simples be employed as auxiliaries by the physician in attendance, or are welcomed for prompt service in a household emergency as ready at hand when the doctor cannot be immediately had.

Moreover, such a Manual as the present of approved Herbal Remedies need not by any means be disparaged by the busy practitioner, when his customary medicines seem to be out of place, or are beyond speedy reach; it being well known that a sick person is always ready to accept with eagerness plain assistant remedies sensibly advised from the garden, the store-closet, the spice-box, or the field.

"Of simple medicines, and their powers to cure,
A wise physician makes his knowledge sure;
Else I or the household in his healing art
He stands ill-fitted to take useful part."

So said Oribasus (freely translated) as long ago as the fourth century, in classic terms prophetic of later times, Simplicium medicamentorum et facultatum quoe in eis insunt cognitio ita necessaria est ut sine eâ nemo rite medicari queat.

But after all has been said and done, none the less must it be finally acknowledged in the pathetic utterance of King Alfred's Anglo-Saxon proverb, Nis [14] no wurt woxen on woode ne on felde, per enure mage be lif uphelden.

"No wort is waxen in wood or wold,
Which may for ever man's life uphold."

Neither to be discovered in the quaint Herbals of primitive times, nor to be learnt by the advanced chemical knowledge of modern plant lore, is there any panacea for all the ills to which our flesh is heir, or an elixir of life, which can secure for us a perpetual immunity from sickness. Contra vim mortis nullum medicamentum in hortis, says the rueful Latin distich:—

"No healing herb can conquer death,
And so for always give us breath."

To sum up which humiliating conclusion good George Herbert has put the matter thus with epigrammatic conciseness:—

"St. Luke was a saint and a physician, yet he is dead!"

But none the less bravely we may still take comfort each in his mortal frailty, because of the hopeful promise preached to men long since by the son of Sirach, "A faithful friend is the Medicine of life; they that fear the Lord shall find Him."

[15] ACORN.

This is the well-known fruit of our British Oak, to Which tree it gives the name—Aik, or Eik, Oak.

The Acorn was esteemed by Dioscorides, and other old authors, for its supposed medicinal virtues. As an article of food it is not known to have been habitually used at any time by the inhabitants of Britain, though acorns furnished the chief support of the large herds of swine on which our forefathers subsisted. The right of maintaining these swine in the woods was called "panage," and formed a valuable property.

The earliest inhabitants of Greece and Southern Europe who lived in the primeval forests were supported almost wholly on the fruit of the Oak. They were described by classic authors as fat of person, and were called "balanophagi"—acorn eaters.

During the great dearth of 1709 the French were driven to eat bread of acorns steeped in water to destroy the bitterness, and they suffered therefrom injurious effects, such as obstinate constipation, or destructive cholera.

It is worth serious notice medically that in years remarkable for a large yield of Acorns disastrous losses have occurred among young cattle from outbreaks of acorn poisoning, or the acorn disease. Those up to two years old suffered most severely, but sheep, pigs and deer were not affected by this acorn malady. Its symptoms are progressive wasting, loss of appetite, diarrhoea, sore places inside the mouth, discharge from [16] the eyes and nostrils, excretion of much pale urine, and no fever, but a fall of temperature below the normal standard. Having regard to which train of symptoms it is fair to suppose the acorn will afford in the human subject a useful specific medicine for the marasmus, or wasting atrophy of young children who are scrofulous. The fruit should be given in the form of a tincture, or vegetable extract, or even admixed (when ground) sparingly with wheaten flour in bread. The dose should fall short of producing any of the above symptoms, and the remedy should be steadily pursued for many weeks.

The tincture should be made of saturated strength with spirit of wine on the bruised acorns, to stand for a fortnight before being decanted. Then the dose will be from twenty to thirty drops with water three or four times a day.

The Acorn contains chemically starch, a fixed oil, citric acid, uncrystallizable sugar, and another special sugar called "quercit."

Acorns, when roasted and powdered, have been sometimes employed as a fair substitute for coffee. By distillation they will yield an ardent spirit.

Dr. Burnett strongly commends a "distilled spirit of acorns" as an antidote to the effects of alcohol, where the spleen and kidneys have already suffered, with induced dropsy. It acts on the principle of similars, ten drops being given three times a day in water.

In certain parts of Europe it is customary to place acorns in the hands of the newly dead; whilst in other districts an apple is put into the palm of a child when lying in its little coffin.

The bark of an oak tree, and the galls, or apples, produced on its leaves, or twigs, by an insect named [17] cynips, are very astringent, by reason of the gallo-tannic acid which they furnish abundantly. This acid, given as a drug, or the strong decoction of oak bark which contains it, will serve to restrain bleedings if taken internally; and finely powdered oak bark, when inhaled pretty frequently, has proved very beneficial against consumption of the lungs in its early stages. Working tanners are well known to be particularly exempt from this disease, probably through their constantly inhaling the peculiar aroma given off from the tan pits; and a like effect may be produced by using as snuff the fresh oak bark dried and reduced to an impalpable powder, or by inhaling day after day the steam given off from recent oak bark infused in boiling water.

Marble galls are formed on the back of young twigs, artichoke galls at their extremities, and currant galls by spangles on the under surface of the leaves. From these spangles females presently emerge, and lay their eggs on the catkins, giving rise to the round shining currant galls.

The Oak—Quercus robur—is so named from the Celtic "quer," beautiful; and "cuez," a tree. "Drus," another Celtic word for tree, and particularly for the Oak, gave rise to the terms Dryads and Druids. Among the Greeks and Romans a chaplet of oak was one of the highest honours which could be conferred on a citizen. Ancient oaks exist in several parts of England, which are traditionally called Gospel oaks, because it was the practice in times long past when beating the bounds of a parish to read a portion of the Gospel on Ascension Day beneath an oak tree which was growing on the boundary line of the district. Cross oaks were planted at the juncture of cross roads, so that persons suffering from ague might peg a lock of their hair into the [18] trunks, and by wrenching themselves away might leave the hair and the malady in the tree together. A strong decoction of oak bark is most usefully applied for prolapse of the lower bowel.

Oak Apple day (May 29th) is called in Hampshire "Shikshak" day.

AGRIMONY.

The Agrimony is a Simple well known to all country folk, and abundant throughout England in the fields and woods, as a popular domestic medicinal herb. It belongs to the Rose order of plants, and blossoms from June to September with small yellow flowers, which sit close along slender spikes a foot high, smelling like apricots, and called by the rustics "Church Steeples." Botanically it bears the names Agrimonia Eupatoria, of which the first is derived from the Greek, and means "shining," because the herb is thought to cure cataract of the eye; and the second bears reference to the liver, as indicating the use of this plant for curing diseases of that organ. Chemists have determined that the Agrimony possesses a particular volatile oil, and yields nearly five per cent. of tannin, so that its use in the cottage for gargles, and as an astringent application to indolent wounds, is well justified. The herb does not seem really to own any qualities for acting medicinally on the liver. More probably the yellow colour of its flowers, which, with the root, furnish a dye of a bright nankeen hue, has given it a reputation in bilious disorders, according to the doctrine of signatures, because the bile is also yellow. Nevertheless, Gerard says: "A decoction of the leaves is good for them that have naughty livers." By pouring a pint of boiling water on a handful of the plant—stems, flowers and leaves—an [19] excellent gargle may be made for a relaxed throat; and a teacupful of the same infusion may be taken cold three or four times in the day for simple looseness of the bowels; also for passive losses of blood. In France, Agrimony tea is drank as a beverage at table. This herb formed an ingredient of the genuine arquebusade water, as prepared against wounds inflicted by an arquebus, or hand-gun, and it was mentioned by Philip de Comines in his account of the battle of Morat, 1476. When the Yeomen of the Guard were first formed in England—1485—half were armed with bows and arrows, whilst the other half carried arquebuses. In France the eau de arquebusade is still applied for sprains and bruises, being carefully made from many aromatic herbs. Agrimony was at one time included in the London Materia Medica as a vulnerary herb. It bears the title of Cockleburr, or Sticklewort, because its seed vessels cling by the hooked ends of their stiff hairs to any person or animal coming into contact with the plant. A strong decoction of the root and leaves, sweetened with honey, has been taken successfully to cure scrofulous sores, being administered two or three times a day in doses of a wineglassful persistently for several months. Perhaps the special volatile oil of the plant, in common with that contained in other herbs similarly aromatic, is curatively antiseptic. Pliny called it a herb "of princely authoritie."

The Hemp Agrimony, or St. John's Herb, belongs to the Composite order of plants, and grows on the margins of brooks, having hemp-like leaves, which are bitter of taste and pungent of smell, as if it were an umbelliferous herb. Because of these hempen leaves it was formerly called "Holy Rope," being thus named after the rope with which Jesus was bound. They contain a volatile [20] oil, which acts on the kidneys; likewise some tannin, and a bitter chemical principle, which will cut short the chill of intermittent fever, or perhaps prevent it. Provers of the plant have found it produce a "bilious fever," with severe headache, redness of the face, nausea, soreness over the liver, constipation, and high-coloured urine. Acting on which experience, a tincture, prepared (H.) from the whole plant, may be confidently given in frequent small well-diluted doses with water for influenza, or for a similar feverish chill, with break-bone pains, prostration, hot dry skin, and some bilious vomiting. Likewise a tea made with boiling water poured on the dried leaves will give prompt relief if taken hot at the onset of a bilious catarrh, or of influenza. This plant also is named Eupatorium because it refers, as Pliny says, to Eupator, a king of Pontus. In Holland it is used for jaundice, with swollen feet: and in America it belongs to the tribe of bone-sets. The Hemp Agrimony grows with us in moist, shady places, with a tall reddish stem, and with terminal crowded heads of dull lilac flowers. Its distinctive title is Cannabinum, or "Hempen," whilst by some it is known as "Thoroughwort."

ANEMONE (Wood).

The Wood Anemone, or medicinal English Pulsatilla, with its lovely pink white petals, and drooping blossoms, is one of our best known and most beautiful spring flowers. Herbalists do not distinguish it virtually from the silky-haired Anemone Pulsatilla, which medicinal variety is of highly valuable modern curative use as a Herbal Simple. The active chemical principles of each plant are "anemonin" and "anemonic acid." A tincture is made (H.) with spirit of wine from the entire [21] plant, collected when in flower. This tincture is remarkably beneficial in disorders of the mucous membranes, alike of the respiratory and of the digestive passages. For mucous indigestion following a heavy or rich meal the tincture of Pulsatilla is almost a specific remedy. Three or four drops thereof should be given at once with a tablespoonful of water, hot or cold, and the same dose may be repeated after an hour if then still needed. For catarrhal affections of the eyes and the ears, as well as for catarrhal diarrhoea, the tincture is very serviceable; also for female monthly difficulties its use is always beneficial and safe. As a medicine it best suits persons of a mild, gentle disposition, and of a lymphatic constitution, especially females; it is less appropriate for quick, excitable, energetic men. Anemonin, or Pulsatilla Camphor, which is the active principle of this plant, is prepared by the chemist, and may be given in doses of from one fiftieth to one tenth of a grain rubbed up with dry sugar of milk. Such a dose (or a drop of the tincture with a tablespoonful of water), given every two or three hours, will soon relieve a swollen testicle; and the tincture still more diluted will ease the bladder difficulties of old men. Furthermore, the tincture, in doses of two or three drops with a spoonful of water, will allay spasmodic cough, as of whooping cough, or bronchitis. The vinegar of Wood Anemone made from the leaves retains all the more acrid properties of the plant, and is put, in France, to many rural domestic purposes. When applied in lotions every night for five or six times consecutively, it will heal indolent ulcers; and its rubefacient effects serve instead of those produced externally by mustard. If a teaspoonful is sprinkled within the palms and its volatile vapours are inhaled through the mouth and nose, this [22] will dispel an incipient catarrh. The name Pulsatilla is a diminutive of the Latin puls, a pottage, as made from pulse, and used at sacrificial feasts. The title Anemone signifies "wind-flower." Pliny says this flower never opens but when the wind is blowing. The title has been misapprehended as "an emony." Turner says gardeners call the flowers "emonies"; and Tennyson, in his "Northern Farmer," tells of the dead keeper being found "doon in the woild enemies afoor I corned to the plaice." Other names of the plant are Wood Crowfoot, Smell Fox (Rants), and Flawflower. Alfred Austin says, "With windflower honey are my tresses smoothed." It is also called the Passover Flower, because blossoming at Easter; and it belongs to the Ranunculaceous order of plants. The flower of the Wood Anemone tells the approach of night, or of a shower, by curling over its petals like a tent; and it has been said that fairies nestle within, having first pulled the curtains round them. Among the old Romans, to gather the first Anemone of the year was deemed a preservative against fever. The Pasque flower, also named Bluemoney and Easter, or Dane's flower, is of a violet blue, growing in chalky pastures, and less common than the Wood Anemone, but each possesses equally curative virtues.

The seed of the Anemone being very light and downy, is blown away by the first breeze of wind. A ready-witted French senator took advantage of this fact while visiting Bacheliere, a covetous florist, near Paris, who had long held a secret monopoly of certain richly-coloured and splendidly handsome anemones from the East. Vexed to see one man hoard up for himself what ought to be more widely distributed, he walked and talked with the florist in his garden when the anemone [23] plants were in seed. Whilst thus occupied, he let fall his robe, as if by accident, upon the flowers, and so swept off a number of the little feathery seed vessels which clung to his dependent garment, and which he afterwards cultivated at home. The petals of the Pasque flower yield a rich green colour, which is used For staining Easter eggs, this festival having been termed Pask time in old works, from "paske," a crossing over. The plant is said to grow best with iron in the soil.

ANGELICA (also called MASTER-WORT).

The wild Angelica grows commonly throughout England in wet places as an umbelliferous plant, with a tall hollow stem, out of which boys like to make pipes. It is purple, furrowed, and downy, bearing white flowers tinged with pink. But the herb is not useful as a simple until cultivated in our gardens, the larger variety being chosen for this purpose, and bearing the name Archangelica.

"Angelica, the happy counterbane,
Sent down from heaven by some celestial scout,
As well its name and nature both avow't."

It came to this country from northern latitudes in 1568. The aromatic stems are grown abundantly near London in moist fields for the use of confectioners. These stems, when candied, are sold as a favourite sweetmeat. They are grateful to the feeble stomach, and will relieve flatulence promptly. The roots of the garden Angelica contain plentifully a peculiar resin called "angelicin," which is stimulating to the lungs, and to the skin: they smell pleasantly of musk, being an excellent tonic and carminative. An infusion of the plant may be made by pouring a pint of boiling water on an ounce of the bruised root, and two tablespoonfuls [24] of this should be given three or four times in the day; or the powdered root may be administered in doses of from ten to thirty grains. The infusion will relieve flatulent stomach-ache, and will promote menstruation if retarded. It is also of use as a stimulating bronchial tonic in the catarrh of aged and feeble persons. Angelica, taken in either medicinal form, is said to cause a disgust for spirituous liquors. In high Dutch it is named the root of the Holy Ghost. The fruit is employed for flavouring some cordials, notably Chartreuse. If an incision is made in the bark of the stems, and the crown of the root, at the commencement of spring, a resinous gum exudes with a special aromatic flavour as of musk or benzoin, for either of which it can be substituted. Gerard says: "If you do but take a piece of the root, and hold it in your mouth, or chew the same between your teeth, it doth most certainly drive away pestilent aire." Icelanders eat both the stem and the roots raw with butter. These parts of the plant, if wounded, yield a yellow juice which becomes, when dried, a valuable medicine beneficial in chronic rheumatism and gout. Some have said the Archangelica was revealed in a dream by an angel to cure the plague; others aver that it blooms on the day of Michael the Archangel (May 8th, old style), and is therefore a preservative against evil spirits and witchcraft.

ANISEED.

The Anise (Pimpinella), from "bipenella," because of its secondary, feather-like leaflets, belongs to the umbelliferous plants, and is cultivated in our gardens; but its aromatic seeds chiefly come from Germany. The careful housewife will do well always to have a [25] supply of this most useful Simple closely bottled in her store cupboard. The herb is a variety of the Burnet Saxifrage, and yields an essential oil of a fine blue colour. To make the essence of Aniseed one part of the oil should be mixed with four parts of spirit of wine. This oil, by its chemical basis, "anethol," represents the medicinal properties of the plant. It has a special influence on the bronchial tubes to encourage expectoration, particularly with children. For infantile catarrh, after its first feverish stage, Aniseed tea is very useful. It should be made by pouring half-a-pint of boiling water on two teaspoonfuls of the seeds, bruised in a mortar, and given when cold in doses of one, two, or three teaspoonfuls, according to the age of the child. For the relief of flatulent stomach-ache, whether in children or in adults, from five to fifteen drops of the essence may be given on a lump of sugar, or mixed with two dessertspoonfuls of hot water. Gerard says: "The Aniseed helpeth the yeoxing, or hicket (hiccough), and should be given to young children to eat which are like to have the falling sickness, or to such as have it by patrimony or succession." The odd literary mistake has been sometimes made of regarding Aniseed as a plural noun: thus, in "The Englishman's Doctor," it is said, "Some anny seeds be sweet, and some bitter." An old epithet of the Anise was, Solamen intestinorum—"The comforter of the bowels." The Germans have an almost superstitious belief in the medicinal virtues of Aniseed, and all their ordinary household bread is plentifully flavoured with the whole seeds. The mustaceoe, or spiced cakes of the Romans, introduced at the close of a rich entertainment, to prevent indigestion, consisted of meal, with anise, cummin, and other aromatics used for staying putrescence or fermentation within the [26] intestines. Such a cake was commonly brought in at the end of a marriage feast; and hence the bridecake of modern times has taken its origin, though the result of eating this is rather to provoke dyspepsia than to prevent it. Formerly, in the East, these seeds were in use as part payment of taxes: "Ye pay tithe of mint, anise [dill?], and cummin!" The oil destroys lice and the itch insect, for which purpose it may be mixed with lard or spermaceti as an ointment. The seed has been used for smoking, so as to promote expectoration.

Besides containing the volatile oil, Aniseed yields phosphates, malates, gum, and a resin. The leaves, if applied externally, will help to remove freckles; and, "Let me tell you this," says a practical writer of the present day, "if you are suffering from bronchitis, with attacks of spasmodic asthma, just send for a bottle of the liqueur called 'Anisette,' and take a dram of it with a little water. You will find it an immediate palliative; you will cease barking like Cerberus; you will be soothed, and go to sleep."— Experto crede! "I have been bronchitic and asthmatic for twenty years, and have never known an alleviative so immediately efficacious as 'Anisette.'"

For the restlessness of languid digestion, a dose of essence of Aniseed in hot water at bedtime is much to be commended. In the Paregoric Elixir, or "Compound Tincture of Camphor," prescribed as a sedative cordial by doctors (and containing some opium), the oil of Anise is also included—thirty drops in a pint of the tincture. This oil is of capital service as a bait for mice.

APPLE.

The term "Apple" was applied by the ancients indiscriminately to almost every kind of round fleshy fruit, [27] such as the thornapple, the pineapple, and the loveapple. Paris gave to Venus a golden apple; Atalanta lost her classic race by staying to pick up an apple; the fruit of the Hesperides, guarded by a sleepless dragon, were golden apples; and through the same fruit befell "man's first disobedience," bringing "death into the world and all our woe" (concerning which the old Hebrew myth runs that the apple of Eden, as the first fermentable fruit known to mankind, was the beginner of intoxicating drinks, which led to the knowledge of good and evil).

Nothing need be said here about the Apple as an esculent; we have only to deal with this eminently English, and most serviceable fruit in its curative and remedial aspects. Chemically, the Apple is composed of vegetable fibre, albumen, sugar, gum, chlorophyll, malic acid, gallic acid, lime, and much water. Furthermore, German analysts say that the Apple contains a larger percentage of phosphorus than any other fruit or vegetable. This phosphorus is specially adapted for renewing the essential nervous "lethicin" of the brain and spinal cord. Old Scandinavian traditions represent the Apple as the food of the gods, who, when they felt themselves growing feeble and infirm, resorted to this fruit for renewing their powers of mind and body. Also the acids of the Apple are of signal use for men of sedentary habits, whose livers are sluggish of action; they help to eliminate from the body noxious matters, which, if retained, would make the brain heavy and dull, or produce jaundice, or skin eruptions, or other allied troubles. Some experience of this sort has led to the custom of our taking Apple sauce with roast pork, roast goose, and similar rich dishes. The malic acid of ripe Apples, raw or cooked, will neutralize the chalky matter engendered in gouty subjects, particularly from [28] an excess of meat eating. A good, ripe, raw Apple is one of the easiest of vegetable substances for the stomach to deal with, the whole process of its digestion being completed in eighty-five minutes. Furthermore, a certain aromatic principle is possessed by the Apple, on which its peculiar flavour depends, this being a fragrant essential oil—the valerianate of amyl—in a small but appreciable quantity. It can be made artificially by the chemist, and used for imparting the flavour of apples to sweetmeats and confectionery. Gerard found that "the pulp of roasted Apples, mixed in a wine quart of faire water, and laboured together until it comes to be as Apples and ale—which we call lambswool (Celtic, 'the day of Apple fruit')—never faileth in certain diseases of the raines, which myself hath often proved, and gained thereby both crownes and credit." Also, "The paring of an Apple cut somewhat thick, and the inside whereof is laid to hot, burning or running eyes at night when the party goes to bed, and is tied or bound to the same, doth help the trouble very speedily, and, contrary to expectation, an excellent secret." A poultice made of rotten Apples is commonly used in Lincolnshire for the cure of weak, or rheumatic eyes. Likewise in the Hotel des Invalides, at Paris, an Apple poultice is employed for inflamed eyes, the apple being roasted, and its pulp applied over the eyes without any intervening substance To obviate constipation two or three Apples taken at night, whether baked or raw, are admirably efficient. It was said long ago: "They do easily and speedily pass through the belly, therefore they do mollify the belly," and for this reason a modern maxim teaches that:—

"To eat an Apple going to bed
Will make the doctor beg his bread."

[29] There was concocted in Gerard's day an ointment with the pulpe of Apples, and swine's grease, and rosewater, which was used to beautifie the face, and to take away the roughnesse of the skin, and which was called in the shops "pomatum," from the apples, "poma," whereof it was prepared. As varieties of the Apple, mention is made in documents of the twelfth century, of the pearmain, and the costard, from the latter of which has come the word costardmonger, as at first a dealer in this fruit, and now applied to our costermonger. Caracioli, an Italian writer, declared that the only ripe fruit he met with in Britain was a baked apple. The juices of Apples are matured and lose their rawness by keeping the fruit a certain time. These juices, together with those of the pear, the peach, the plum, and other such fruits, if taken without adding cane sugar, diminish acidity in the stomach rather than provoke it: they become converted chemically into alkaline carbonates, which correct sour fermentation. It is said in Devonshire that apples shrump up if picked when the moon is on the wane. From the bark of the stem and root of the apple, pear and plum trees, a glucoside is to be obtained in small crystals, which possesses the peculiar property of producing artificial diabetes in animals to whom it is given.

The juice of a sour Apple, if rubbed on warts first pared away to the quick, will serve to cure them. The wild "Scrab," or Crab Apple, armed with thorns, grows in our fields and hedgerows, furnishing verjuice, which is rich in tannin, and a most useful application for old sprains. In the United States of America an infusion of apple tree bark is given with benefit during intermittent, remittent, and bilious fevers. We likewise prescribe Apple water as a grateful cooling drink for [29] feverish patients. Francatelli directs that it should be made thus: "Slice up thinly three or four Apples without peeling them, and boil them in a very clean saucepan, with a quart of water and a little sugar until the slices of apple become soft; the apple water must then be strained through a piece of muslin, or clean rag, into a jug, and drank when cold." If desired, a small piece of the yellow rind of a lemon may be added, just enough to give it a flavour.

About the year 1562 a certain rector of St. Ives, in Cornwall, the Rev. Mr. Attwell, practised physic with milk and Apples so successfully in many diseases, and so spread his reputation, that numerous sufferers came to him from all the neighbouring counties. In Germany ripe Apples are applied to warts for removing them, by reason of the earthy salts, particularly the magnesia, of the fruit. It is a fact, though not generally known, that magnesia, as occurring in ordinary Epsom salts, will cure obstinate warts, and the disposition thereto. Just a few grains, from three to six, not enough to produce any sensible medicinal effect, taken once a day for three or four weeks, will surely dispel a crop of warts. Old cheese ameliorates Apples if eaten when crude, probably by reason of the volatile alkali, or ammonia of the cheese neutralizing the acids of the Apple. Many persons make a practice of eating cheese with Apple pie. The "core" of an Apple is so named from the French word, coeur, "heart."

The juice of the cultivated Apple made by fermentation into cider, which means literally "strong drink," was pronounced by John Evelyn, in his Pomona, 1729, to be "in a word the most wholesome drink in Europe, as specially sovereign against the scorbute, the stone, spleen, and what not." This beverage [31] contains alcohol (on the average a little over five per cent.), gum, sugar, mineral matters, and several acids, among which the malic predominates. As an habitual drink, if sweet, it is apt to provoke acid fermentation with a gouty subject, and to develop rheumatism. Nevertheless, Dr. Nash, of Worcester, attributed to cider great virtues in leading to longevity; and a Herefordshire vicar bears witness to its superlative merits thus:—

"All the Gallic wines are not so boon
As hearty cider;—that strong son of wood
In fullest tides refines and purges blood;
Becomes a known Bethesda, whence arise
Full certain cures for spit tall maladies:
Death slowly can the citadel invade;
A draught of this bedulls his scythe, and spade."

Medical testimony goes to show that in countries where cider—not of the sweet sort—is the common beverage, stone, or calculus, is unknown; and a series of enquiries among the doctors of Normandy, a great Apple country, where cider is the principal, if not the sole drink, brought to light the fact that not a single case had been met with there in forty years. Cider Apples were introduced by the Normans; and the beverage began to be brewed in 1284. The Hereford orchards were first planted "tempore" Charles I.

A chance case of stone in the bladder if admitted into a Devonshire or a Herefordshire Hospital, is regarded by the surgeons there as a sort of professional curiosity, probably imported from a distance. So that it may be fairly surmised that the habitual use of natural unsweetened cider keeps held in solution materials which are otherwise liable to be separated in a solid form by the kidneys.

Pippins are apples which have been raised from pips; [32] a codling is an apple which requires to be "coddled," stewed, or lightly boiled, being yet sour and unfit for eating whilst raw. The John Apple, or Apple John, ripens on St. John's Day, December 27th. It keeps sound for two years, but becomes very shrunken. Sir John Falstaff says (Henry IV., iii. 3) "Withered like an old Apple John." The squab pie, famous in Cornwall, contains apples and onions allied with mutton.

"Of wheaten walls erect your paste:
Let the round mass extend its breast;
Next slice your apples picked so fresh;
Let the fat sheep supply its flesh:
Then add an onion's pungent juice—
A sprinkling—be not too profuse!
Well mixt, these nice ingredients—sure!
May gratify an epicure."

In America, "Apple Slump" is a pie consisting of apples, molasses, and bread crumbs baked in a tin pan. This is known to New Englanders as "Pan Dowdy." An agreeable bread was at one time made by an ingenious Frenchman which consisted of one third of apples boiled, and two-thirds of wheaten flour.

It was through the falling of an apple in the garden of Mrs. Conduitt at Woolthorpe, near Grantham, Sir Isaac Newton was led to discover the great law of gravitation which regulates the whole universe. Again, it was an apple the patriot William Tell shot from the head of his own bright boy with one arrow, whilst reserving a second for the heart of a tyrant. Dr. Prior says the word Apple took its origin from the Sanskrit, Ap,—"water," and Phal,—"fruit," meaning "water fruit," or "juice fruit"; and with this the Latin name Pomum—from Poto, "to drink"—precisely agrees; if which be so, our apple must have come originally from the East long ages back.

[33] The term "Apple-pie order" is derived from the French phrase, à plis, "in plaits," folded in regular plaits; or, perhaps, from cap à pied, "armed from head to foot," in perfect order. Likewise the "Apple-pie bed" is so called from the French à plis, or it may be from the Apple turnover of Devon and Cornwall, as made with the paste turned over on itself.

The botanical name of an apple tree is Pyrus Malus, of which schoolboys are wont to make ingenious uses by playing on the latter word. Malo, I had rather be; Malo, in an Apple tree; Malo, than a wicked man; Malo, in adversity. Or, again, Mea mater mala est sus, which bears the easy translation, "My mother is a wicked old sow"; but the intentional reading of which signifies "Run, mother! the sow is eating the apples." The term "Adam's Apple," which is applied to the most prominent part of a person's throat in front is based on the superstition that a piece of the forbidden fruit stuck in Adam's throat, and caused this lump to remain.

ARUM—THE COMMON.

The "lords and ladies" (arum maculatum) so well known to every rustic as common throughout Spring in almost every hedge row, has acquired its name from the colour of its erect pointed spike enclosed within the curled hood of an upright arrow-shaped leaf. This is purple or cream hued, according to the accredited sex of the plant. It bears further the titles of Cuckoo Pint, Wake Robin, Parson in the Pulpit, Rampe, Starchwort, Arrowroot, Gethsemane, Bloody Fingers, Snake's Meat, Adam and Eve, Calfsfoot, Aaron, and Priest's Pintle. The red spots on its glossy emerald arrow-head leaves, are attributed to the dropping of our Saviour's blood on [34] the plant whilst growing at the foot of the cross. Several of the above appellations bear reference to the stimulating effects of the herb on the sexual organs. Its tuberous root has been found to contain a particular volatile acrid principle which exercises distinct medicinal effects, though these are altogether dissipated if the roots are subjected to heat by boiling or baking. When tasted, the fresh juice causes an acrid burning irritation of the mouth and throat; also, if swallowed it will produce a red raw state of the palate and tongue, with cracked lips. The leaves, when applied externally to a delicate skin will blister it. Accordingly a tincture made (H.) from the plant and its root proves curative in diluted doses for a chronic sore throat, with swollen mucous membrane, and vocal hoarseness, such as is often known as "Clergyman's Sore Throat," and likewise for a feverish sore mouth, as well as for an irresistible tendency to sleepiness, and heaviness after a full meal. From five to ten drops of the tincture, third decimal strength, should be given with a tablespoonful of cold water to an adult three times a day. An ointment made by stewing the fresh sliced root with lard serves efficiently for the cure of ringworm.

The fresh juice yields malate of lime, whilst the plant contains gum, sugar, starch and fat. The name Arum is derived from the Hebrew jaron, "a dart," in allusion to the shape of the leaves like spear heads; or, as some think, from aur, "fire," because of the acrid juice. The adjective _maculatum _refers to the dark spots or patches which are seen on the smooth shining leaves of the plant. These leaves have sometimes proved fatal to children who have mistaken them for sorrel. The brilliant scarlet coral-like berries which are found set closely about the erect spike of the arum in the autumn [35] are known to country lads as adder's meat—a name corrupted from the Anglo-Saxon attor, "poison," as originally applied to these berries, though it is remarkable that pheasants can eat them with impunity.

In Queen Elizabeth's time the Arum was known as starch-wort because the roots were then used for supplying pure white starch to stiffen the ruffs and frills worn at that time by gallants and ladies. This was obtained by boiling or baking the roots, and thus dispelling their acridity. When dried and powdered the root constitutes the French cosmetic, "Cypress Powder." Recently a patented drug, "Tonga," has obtained considerable notoriety for curing obstinate neuralgia of the head and face—this turning out to be the dried scraped stem of an aroid (or arum) called Raphidophora Vitiensis, belonging to the Fiji Islands. Acting on the knowledge of which fact some recent experimenters have tried the fresh juice expressed from our common Arum Maculatum in a severe case of neuralgia which could be relieved previously only by Tonga: and it was found that this juice in doses of a teaspoonful gave similar relief. The British Domestic Herbal, of Sydenham's time, describes a case of alarming dropsy, with great constitutional exhaustion treated most successfully with a medicine composed of Arum and Angelica, which cured in about three weeks. The "English Passion Flower" and "Portland Sago" are other names given to the Arum Maculatum.

ASPARAGUS.

The Asparagus, belonging to the Lily order of plants, occurs wild on the coasts of Essex, Suffolk, and Cornwall. It is there a more prickly plant than the cultivated vegetable which we grow for the sake of the tender, [36] edible shoots. The Greeks and Romans valued it for their tables, and boiled it so quickly that velocius quam asparagi coquuntur—"faster than asparagus is cooked"—was a proverb with them, to which our "done in a jiffy" closely corresponds. The shoots, whether wild or cultivated, are succulent, and contain wax, albumen, acetate of potash, phosphate of potash, mannite, a green resin, and a fixed principle named "asparagin." This asparagin stimulates the kidneys, and imparts a peculiar, strong smell to the urine after taking the shoots; at the same time, the green resin with which the asparagin is combined, exercises gently sedative effects on the heart, calming palpitation, or nervous excitement of that organ. Though not producing actual sugar in the urine, asparagus forms and excretes a substance therein which answers to the reactions used by physicians for detecting sugar, except the fermentation test. It may fairly be given in diabetes with a promise of useful results. In Russia it is a domestic medicine for the arrest of flooding.

Asparagin also bears the chemical name of "althein," and occurs in crystals, which may be reduced to powder, and which may likewise be got from the roots of marsh mallow, and liquorice. One grain of this given three times a day is of service for relieving dropsy from disease of the heart. Likewise, a medicinal tincture is made (H.) from the whole plant, of which eight or ten drops given with a tablespoonful of water three times a day will also allay urinary irritation, whilst serving to do good against rheumatic gout. A syrup of asparagus is employed medicinally in France: and at Aix-les-Bains it forms part of the cure for rheumatic patients to eat Asparagus. The roots of Asparagus contain diuretic virtues more abundantly than the shoots. An infusion [37] made from these roots will assist against jaundice, and congestive torpor of the liver. The shrubby stalks of the plant bear red, coral-like berries which, when ripe, yield grape sugar, and spargancin. Though generally thought to branch out into feathery leaves, these are only ramified stalks substituted by the plant when growing on an arid sandy soil, where no moisture could be got for the maintenance of leaves. The berries are attractive to small birds, who swallow them whole, and afterwards void the seeds, to germinate when thus scattered about. Thus there is some valid reason for the vulgar corruption of the title Asparagus into Sparrowgrass, or Grass. Botanically the plant is a lily which has seen better days. In the United States of America, Asparagus is thought to be undeniably sedative, and a palliative in all heart affections attended with excited action of the pulse. The water in which asparagus has been boiled, if drunk, though somewhat disagreeable, is beneficial against rheumatism. The cellular tissue of the plant furnishes a substance similar to sago. In Venice, the wild asparagus is served at table, but it is strong in flavour and less succulent than the cultivated sort. Mortimer Collins makes Sir Clare, one of his characters in Clarisse say: "Liebig, or some other scientist maintains that asparagin—the alkaloid in asparagus-develops form in the human brain: so, if you get hold of an artistic child, and give him plenty of asparagus, he will grow into a second Raffaelle!"

Gerard calls the plant "Sperage," "which is easily concocted when eaten, and doth gently loose the belly." Our name, "Asparagus," is derived from a Greek word signifying "the tearer," in allusion to the spikes of some species; or perhaps from the Persian "Spurgas," a shoot.

[38] John Evelyn, in his Book of Salads, derives the term Asparagus in easy fashion, ab asperitate, "from the sharpness of the plant." "Nothing," says he, "next to flesh is more nourishing; but in this country we overboil them, and dispel their volatile salts: the water should boil before they are put in." He tells of asparagus raised at Battersea in a natural, sweet, and well-cultivated soil, sixteen of which (each one weighing about four ounces) were made a present to his wife, showing what "solum, coelum, and industry will effect." The Asparagus first came into use as a food about 200 B.C., in the time of the elder Cato, and Augustus was very partial to it. The wild Asparagus was called Lybicum, and by the Athenians, Horminium. Roman cooks used to dry the shoots, and when required these were thrown into hot water, and boiled for a few minutes to make them look fresh and green. Gerard advises that asparagus should be sodden in flesh broth, and eaten; or boiled in fair water, seasoned with oil, pepper, and vinegar, being served up as a salad. Our ancestors in Tudor times ate the whole of the stalks with spoons. Swift's patron, Sir William Temple, who had been British Minister at the Hague, brought the art of Asparagus culture from Holland; and when William III. visited Sir William at Moor Park, where young Jonathan was domiciled as Secretary, his Majesty is said to have taught the future Dean of St. Patrick's how to eat asparagus in the Dutch style. Swift afterwards at his own table refused a second helping of the vegetable to a guest until the stalks had been devoured, alleging that "King William always ate his stalks." When the large white asparagus first came into vogue, it was known as the "New Vegetable." This was grown with lavish manure and was called Dutch Asparagus. For [39] cooking the stalks should be cut of equal lengths, and boiled standing upwards in a deep saucepan with nearly two inches of the heads out of the water. Then the steam will suffice to cook these tender parts, whilst the hard stalky portions may be boiled long enough to become soft and succulently wholesome. Two sorts of asparagus are now grown— the one an early kind, pinkish white, cultivated in France and the Channel Islands; the other green and English. At Kynance Cove in Cornwall, there is an island called Asparagus Island, from the abundance in which the plant is found there.

In connection with this popular vegetable may be quoted the following riddle:—

"What killed a queen to love inclined,
What on a beggar oft we find,
Show—to ourselves if aptly joined,
A plant which we in bundles bind."

BALM.

The herb Balm, or Melissa, which is cultivated quite commonly in our cottage gardens, has its origin in the wild, or bastard Balm, growing in our woods, especially in the South of England, and bearing the name of "Mellitis." Each is a labiate plant, and "Bawme," say the Arabians, "makes the heart merry and joyful." The title, "Balm," is an abbreviation of Balsam, which signifies "the chief of sweet-smelling oils;" Hebrew, Bal smin, "chief of oils"; and the botanical suffix, Melissa, bears reference to the large quantity of honey (mel) contained in the flowers of this herb.

When cultivated, it yields from its leaves and tops an essential oil which includes a chemical principle, or "stearopten." "The juice of Balm," as Gerard tells us, "glueth together greene wounds," and the leaves, say [40] both Pliny and Dioscorides, "being applied, do close up woundes without any perill of inflammation." It is now known as a scientific fact that the balsamic oils of aromatic plants make most excellent surgical dressings. They give off ozone, and thus exercise anti-putrescent effects. Moreover, as chemical "hydrocarbons," they contain so little oxygen, that in wounds dressed with the fixed balsamic herbal oils, the atomic germs of disease are starved out. Furthermore, the resinous parts of these balsamic oils, as they dry upon the sore or wound, seal it up, and effectually exclude all noxious air. So the essential oils of balm, peppermint, lavender, and the like, with pine oil, resin of turpentine, and the balsam of benzoin (Friars' Balsam) should serve admirably for ready application on lint or fine rag to cuts and superficial sores. In domestic surgery, the lamentation of Jeremiah falls to the ground: "Is there no balm in Gilead: is there no physician there?" Concerning which "balm of Gilead," it may be here told that it was formerly of great esteem in the East as a medicine, and as a fragrant unguent. It was the true balsam of Judea, which at one time grew nowhere else in the whole world but at Jericho. But when the Turks took the Holy Land, they transplanted this balsam to Grand Cairo, and guarded its shrubs most jealously by Janissaries during the time the balsam was flowing.

In the "Treacle Bible," 1584, Jeremiah viii., v. 22, this passage is rendered: "Is there not treacle at Gylead?" Venice treacle, or triacle, was a famous antidote in the middle ages to all animal poisons. It was named Theriaca (the Latin word for our present treacle) from the Greek word Therion, a small animal, in allusion to the vipers which were added to the triacle by Andromachus, physician to the emperor Nero.

[41] Tea made of our garden balm, by virtue of the volatile oil, will prove restorative, and will promote perspiration if taken hot on the access of a cold or of influenza; also, if used in like manner, it will help effectively to bring on the delayed monthly flow with women. But an infusion of the plant made with cold water, acts better as a remedy for hysterical headache, and as a general nervine stimulant because the volatile aromatic virtues are not dispelled by heat. Formerly, a spirit of balm, combined with lemon peel, nutmeg, and angelica-root, enjoyed a great reputation as a restorative cordial under the name of Carmelite water. Paracelsus thought so highly of balm that he believed it would completely revivify a man, as primum ens melissoe. The London Dispensatory of 1696 said: "The essence of balm given in Canary wine every morning will renew youth, strengthen the brain, relieve languishing nature, and prevent baldness." "Balm," adds John Evelyn, "is sovereign for the brain, strengthening the memory, and powerfully chasing away melancholy." In France, women bruise the young shoots of balm, and make them into cakes, with eggs, sugar, and rose water, which they give to mothers in childbed as a strengthener.

It is fabled that the Jew Ahasuerus (who refused a cup of water to our Saviour on His way to Golgotha, and was therefore doomed to wander athirst until Christ should come again) on a Whitsuntide evening, asked for a draught of small beer at the door of a Staffordshire cottager who was far advanced in consumption. He got the drink, and out of gratitude advised the sick man to gather in the garden three leaves of Balm, and to put them into a cup of beer. This was to be repeated every fourth day for twelve days, the refilling of the cup to be continued as often as might be wished; then "the [42] disease shall be cured and thy body altered." So saying, the Jew departed and was never seen there again. But the cottager obeyed the injunction, and at the end of the twelve days had become a sound man.

BARBERRY.

The Common Barberry (Berberis), which gives its name to a special order of plants, grows wild as a shrub in our English copses and hedges, particularly about Essex, being so called from Berberin, a pearl oyster, because the leaves are glossy like the inside of an oyster shell. It is remarkable for the light colour of its bark, which is yellow inside, and for its three-forked spines. Provincially it is also termed Pipperidge-bush, from "pepin," a pip, and "rouge," red, as descriptive of its small scarlet juiceless fruit, of which the active chemical principles, as well as of the bark, are "berberin" and "oxyacanthin." The sparingly-produced juice of the berries is cooling and astringent. It was formerly held in high esteem by the Egyptians, when diluted as a drink, in pestilential fevers. The inner, yellow bark, which has been long believed to exercise a medicinal effect on the liver, because of its colour, is a true biliary purgative. An infusion of this bark, made with boiling water, is useful in jaundice from congestive liver, with furred tongue, lowness of spirits, and yellow complexion; also for swollen spleen from malarious exposure. A medicinal tincture (H.) is made of the root-branches and the root-bark, with spirit of wine; and if given three or four times a day in doses of five drops with one tablespoonful of cold water, it will admirably rouse the liver to healthy and more vigorous action. Conversely the tincture when of reduced strength will stay bilious diarrhoea. British farmers dislike the [43] Barberry shrub because, when it grows in cornfields, the wheat near it is blighted, even to the distance of two or three hundred yards. This is because of a special fungus which is common to the Barberry, and being carried by the wind reproduces itself by its spores destructively on the ears of wheat, the AEcidium Berberidis, which generates Puccinia.

Clusius setteth it down as a wonderful secret which he had from a friend, "that if the yellow bark of Barberry be steeped in white wine for three hours, and be afterwards drank, it will purge one very marvellously."

The berries upon old Barberry shrubs are often stoneless, and this is the best fruit for preserving or for making the jelly. They contain malic and citric acids; and it is from these berries that the delicious confitures d'epine vinette, for which Rouen is famous, are commonly prepared. And the same berries are chosen in England to furnish the kernel for a very nice sugar-plum. The syrup of Barberries will make with water an excellent astringent gargle for raw, irritable sore throat; likewise the jelly gives famous relief for this catarrhal affection. It is prepared by boiling the berries, when ripe, with an equal weight of sugar, and then straining. For an attack of colic because of gravel in the kidneys, five drops of the tincture on sugar every five minutes will promptly relieve, as likewise when albumen is found by analysis in the urine.

A noted modern nostrum belauds the virtues of the Barberry as specific against bile, heartburn, and the black jaundice, this being a remedy which was "discovered after infinite pains by one who had studied for thirty years by candle light for the good of his countrymen." In Gerard's time at the village of Ivor, near Colebrooke, most of the hedges consisted solely of Barberry bushes.

[44] The following is a good old receipt for making Barberry jam:—Pick the fruit from the stalks, and bake it in an earthen pan; then press it through a sieve with a wooden spoon. Having mixed equal weights of the prepared fruit, and of powdered sugar, put these together in pots, and cover the mixture up, setting them in a dry place, and having sifted some powdered sugar over the top of each pot. Among the Italians the Barberry bears the name of Holy Thorn, because thought to have formed part of the crown of thorns made for our Saviour.

BARLEY.

Hordeum Vulgare—common Barley—is chiefly used in Great Britain for brewing and distilling; but, it has dietetic and medicinal virtues which entitle it to be considered among serviceable simples. Roman gladiators who depended for their strength and prowess chiefly on Barley, were called Hordearii. Nevertheless, this cereal is less nourishing than wheat, and when prepared as food is apt to purge; therefore it is not made into bread, except when wheat is scarce and dear, though in Scotland poor people eat Barley bread. In India Barley meal is made into balls of dough for the oxen and camels. Pearl Barley is prepared in Holland and Germany by first shelling the grain, and then grinding it into round white granules. The ancients fed their horses upon Barley, and we fatten swine on this grain made into meal. Among the Greeks beer was known as barley wine, which was brewed without hops, these dating only from the fourteenth century.

A decoction of barley with gum arabic, one ounce of the gum dissolved in a pint of the hot decoction, is a very useful drink to soothe irritation of the bladder, [45] and of the urinary passages. The chemical constituents of Barley are starch, gluten, albumen, oil, and hordeic acid. From the earliest times it has been employed to prepare drinks for the sick, especially in feverish disorders, and for sore lining membranes of the chest. Honey may be added beneficially to the decoction of barley for bronchial coughs. The French make "Orgeat" of barley boiled in successive waters, and sweetened at length as a cooling drink: though this name is now applied in France to a liqueur concocted from almonds.

BASIL.

The herb Sweet Basil (Ocymum Basilicum) is so called because "the smell thereof is fit for a king's house." It grows commonly in our kitchen gardens, but in England it dies down every year, and the seeds have to be sown annually. Botanically, it is named "basilicon," or royal, probably because used of old in some regal unguent, or bath, or medicine.

This, and the wild Basil, belong to the Labiate order of plants. The leaves of the Sweet Basil, when slightly bruised, exhale a delightful odour; they gave the distinctive flavour to the original Fetter-Lane sausages.

The Wild Basil (Calamintha clinopodium) or Basil thyme, or Horse thyme, is a hairy plant growing in bushy places, also about hedges and roadsides, and bearing whorls of purple flowers with a strong odour of cloves. The term Clinopodium signifies "bed's-foot flower," because "the branches dooe resemble the foot of a bed." In common with the other labiates, Basil, both the wild and the sweet, furnishes an aromatic volatile camphoraceous oil. On this account it is much employed in France for flavouring soups (especially mock turtle) and [46] sauces; and the dry leaves, in the form of snuff, are used for relieving nervous headaches. A tea, made by pouring boiling water on the garden basil, when green, gently but effectually helps on the retarded monthly flow with women. The Bush Basil is Ocymum minimum, of which the leafy tops are used for seasoning, and in salads.

The Sweet Basil has been immortalised by Keats in his tender, pathetic poem of Isabella and the Pot of Basil, founded on a story from Boccaccio. She reverently possessed herself of the decapitated head of her lover, Lorenzo, who had been treacherously slain:—

"She wrapped it up, and for its tomb did choose
A garden pot, wherein she laid it by,
And covered it with mould, and o'er it set
Sweet Basil, which her tears kept ever wet."

The herb was used at funerals in Persia. Its seeds were sown by the Romans with maledictions and curses through the belief that the more it was abused the better it would prosper. When desiring a good crop they trod it down with their feet, and prayed the gods it might not vegetate. The Greeks likewise supposed Basil to thrive best when sown with swearing; and this fact explains the French saying, Semer la Basilic, as signifying "to slander." It was told in Elizabeth's time that the hand of a fair lady made Basil flourish; and this was then planted in pots as an act of gallantry. "Basil," says John Evelyn, "imparts a grateful flavour to sallets if not too strong, but is somewhat offensive to the eyes." Shenstone, in his School Mistress's Garden, tells of "the tufted Basil," and Culpeper quaintly says: "Something is the matter; Basil and Rue will never grow together: no, nor near one another." It is related [47] that a certain advocate of Genoa was once sent as an ambassador to treat for conditions with the Duke of Milan; but the Duke harshly refused to hear the message, or to grant the conditions. Then the Ambassador offered him a handful of Basil. Demanding what this meant, the Duke was told that the properties of the herb were, if gently handled, to give out a pleasant odour; but that, if bruised, and hardly wrung, it would breed scorpions. Moved by this witty answer, the Duke confirmed the conditions, and sent the Ambassador honourably home.

BEAN (see Pea and Bean).

BELLADONNA (see Night Shade).

BENNET HERB (Avens).

This, the Herba Benedicta, or Blessed Herb, or Avens (Geum Urbanum) is a very common plant of the Rose tribe, in our woods, hedges, and shady places. It has an erect hairy stem, red at the base, with terminal bright yellow drooping flowers. The ordinary name Avens—or Avance, Anancia, Enancia—signifies an antidote, because it was formerly thought to ward off the Devil, and evil spirits, and venomous beasts. Where the root is in a house Satan can do nothing, and flies from it: "therefore" (says Ortus Sanitatis) "it is blessed before all other herbs; and if a man carries the root about him no venomous beast can harm him." The herb is sometimes called Way Bennet, and Wild Rye. Its graceful trefoiled loaf, and the fine golden petals of its flowers, symbolising the five wounds of Christ, were sculptured by the monks of the thirteenth century on their Church architecture. The botanical title of this [48] plant, Geum, is got from Geuo, "to yield an agreeable fragrance," in allusion to the roots. Hence also has been derived another appellation of the Avens—Radix Caryophyllata, or "clove root," because when freshly dug out of the ground the roots smell like cloves. They yield tannin freely, with mucilage, resin, and muriate of lime, together with a heavy volatile oil. The roots are astringent and antiseptic, having been given in infusion for ague, and as an excellent cordial sudorific in chills, or for fresh catarrh. To make this a pint of boiling water should be poured on half an ounce of the dried root, or rather more of the fresh root, sliced. Half a wineglassful will be the dose, or ten grains of the powdered root. An extract is further made. When the petals of the flower fall off, a small round prickly ball is to be seen.

BETONY.

Few, if any, herbal plants have been more praised for their supposed curative virtues than the Wood Betony (Stachys Betonica), belonging to the order of Labiates. By the common people it is often called Bitny. The name Betonica is from the Celtic "ben," head, and "tonic," good, in allusion to the usefulness of the herb against infirmities of the head. It is of frequent growth in shady woods and meadows, having aromatic leaves, and spikes (stakoi) of light purple flowers. Formerly it was held in the very highest esteem as a leading herbal simple. The Greeks loudly extolled its good qualities. Pliny, in downright raptures, styled it ante cunctas laudatissima! An old Italian proverb ran thus: Vende la tunica en compra la Betonia, "Sell your coat, and buy Betony;" whilst modern Italians, when speaking of a most excellent man, say, [49] "He has as many virtues as Betony"—He piu virtù che Bettonica.

In the Medicina Britannica, 1666, we read: "I have known the most obstinate headaches cured by daily breakfasting for a month or six weeks on a decoction of Betony, made with new milk, and strained."

Antonius Musa, chief physician to the Emperor Augustus, wrote a book entirely on the virtues of this herb. Meyrick says, inveterate headaches after resisting every other remedy, have been cured by taking daily at breakfast a decoction made from the leaves and tops of the Wood Betony. Culpeper wrote: "This is a precious herb well worth keeping in your house." Gerard tells that "Betony maketh a man have a good appetite to his meat, and is commended against ache of the knuckle bones" (sciatica).

A pinch of the powdered herb will provoke violent sneezing. The dried leaves formed an ingredient in Rowley's British Herb Snuff, which was at one time quite famous against headaches.

And yet, notwithstanding all this concensus of praise from writers of different epochs, it does not appear that the Betony, under chemical analysis and research, shows itself as containing any special medicinal or curative constituents. It only affords the fragrant aromatic principles common to most of the labiate plants.

Parkinson, who enlarged the Herbal of Gerard, pronounced the leaves and flowers of Wood Betony, "by their sweet and spicy taste, comfortable both in meate and medicine." Anyhow, Betony tea, made with boiling water poured on the plant, is a safe drink, and likely to prove of benefit against languid nervous headaches; and the dried herb may be smoked as tobacco for relieving the same ailment. To make Betony tea, put two ounces of [50] the herb to a quart of water over the fire, and let this gradually simmer to three half-pints. Give a wine-glassful of the decoction three times a day. A conserve may be made from the flowers for similar purposes. The Poet Laureate, A. Austin, mentions "lye of Betony to soothe the brow." Both this plant, and the Water Betony—so called from its similarity of leaf—bear the name of Kernel-wort, from having tubers or kernels attached to the roots, and from being therefore supposed, on the doctrine of signatures, to cure diseased kernels or scrofulous glands in the neck; also to banish piles from the fundament.

But the Water Betony (Figwort) belongs not to the labiates, but to the Scrophulariaceoe, or scrofula-curing order of plants. It is called in some counties "brown-wort," and in Yorkshire "bishopsleaves," or, l'herbe du siège, which term has a double meaning—in allusion both to the seat in the temple of Cloacina (W.C.) and to the ailments of the lower body in connection therewith, as well as to the more exalted "See" of a Right Reverend Prelate. In old times the Water figwort was famous as a vulnerary, both when used externally, and when taken in decoction. The name "brown-wort" has been got either from the brown colour of the stems and flowers, or, more probably, from its growing abundantly about the "brunnen," or public German fountains. Wasps and bees are fond of the flowers. In former days this herb was relied on for the cure of toothache, and for expelling the particular disembodied spirit, or "mare," which visited our Saxon ancestors during their sleep after supper, being familiarly known to them as the "nightmare." The "Echo" was in like manner thought by the Saxons to be due to a spectre, or mare, which they called the "wood mare." The Water [51] Betony is said to make one of the ingredients in Count Mattaei's noted remedy, "anti-scrofuloso." The Figwort is named in Somersetshire "crowdy-kit" (the word kit meaning a fiddle), "or fiddlewood," because if two of the stalks are rubbed together, they make a noise like the scraping of the bow on violin strings. In Devonshire, also, the plant is known as "fiddler."

An allied Figwort—which is botanically called nodosa, or knotted—is considered, when an ointment is made with it, using the whole plant bruised and treated with unsalted lard, a sovereign remedy against "burnt holes" or gangrenous chicken-pox, such as often attacks the Irish peasantry, who subsist on a meagre and exclusively vegetable diet, being half starved, and pent up in wretched foul hovels. This herb is said to be certainly curative of hydrophobia, by taking every morning whilst fasting a slice of bread and butter on which the powdered knots of the roots have been spread, following it up with two tumblers of fresh spring water. Then let the patient be well clad in woollen garments and made to take a long fast walk until in a profuse perspiration. The treatment should be continued for nine days. Again, the botanical name of a fig, ficus, has been commonly applied to a sore or scab appearing on a part of the body where hair is, or to a red sore in the fundament, i.e., to a pile. And the Figwort is so named in allusion to its curative virtues against piles, when the plant is made into an ointment for outward use, and when the tincture is taken internally. It is specially visited by wasps.

BILBERRY (Whortleberry, or Whinberry).

This fruit, which belongs to the Cranberry order of plants, grows abundantly throughout England in heathy [52] and mountainous districts. The small-branched shrub bears globular, wax-like flowers, and black berries, which are covered, when quite fresh, with a grey bloom. In the West of England they are popularly called "whorts," and they ripen about the time of St. James' Feast, July 25th. Other names for the fruit are Blueberry, Bulberry, Hurtleberry, and Huckleberry. The title Whinberry has been acquired from its growing on Whins, or Heaths; and Bilberry signifies dark coloured; whence likewise comes Blackwort as distinguished in its aspect from the Cowberry and the Cranberry. By a corruption the original word Myrtleberry has suffered change of its initial M into W. (Whortlebery.) In the middle ages the Myrtleberry was used in medicine and cookery, to which berry the Whortleberry bears a strong resemblance. It is agreeable to the taste, and may be made into tarts, but proves mawkish unless mixed with some more acid fruit.

The Bilberry (Vaccinium Myrtillus) is an admirable astringent, and should be included as such among the domestic medicines of the housewife. If some good brandy be poured over two handfuls of the fruit in a bottle, this will make an extract which continually improves by being kept. Obstinate diarrhoea may be cured by giving doses of a tablespoonful of this extract taken with a wineglassful of warm water, and repeated at intervals of two hours whilst needed, even for the more severe cases of dysenteric diarrhoea. The berries contain chemically much tannin. Their stain on the lips may be quickly effaced by sucking at a lemon. In Devonshire they are eaten at table with cream. The Irish call them "frawns." If the first tender leaves are properly gathered and dried, they can scarcely be [53] distinguished from good tea. Moor game live on these berries in the autumn. Their juice will stain paper or linen purple:—

"Sanguineo splendore rosas vaccinia nigro,
Induit, et dulci violas ferrugine pingit."
CLAUDIAN.

They are also called in some counties, Blaeberries, Truckleberries, and Blackhearts.

The extract of Bilberry is found to be a very useful application for curing such skin diseases as scaly eczema, and other eczema which is not moist or pustulous; also for burns and scalds. Some of the extract is to be laid thickly on the cleansed skin with a camel hairbrush, and a thin layer of cotton wool to be spread over it, the whole being fastened with a calico or gauze bandage. This should be changed gently once a day.

Another Vaccinium (oxycoccos), the Marsh Whortleberry, or Cranberry, or Fenberry—from growing in fens—is found in peat bogs, chiefly in the North. This is a low plant with straggling wiry stems, and solitary terminal bright red flowers, of which the segments are bent back in a singular manner. Its fruit likewise makes excellent tarts, and forms a considerable article of commerce at Langtown, on the borders of Cumberland. The fruit stalks are crooked at the top, and before the blossom expands they resemble the head and neck of a crane.

BLACKBERRY.

This is the well-known fruit of the Common Bramble (Rubus fructicosus), which grows in every English hedgerow, and which belongs to the Rose order of plants. It has long been esteemed for its bark and leaves as a [54] capital astringent, these containing much tannin; also for its fruit, which is supplied with malic and citric acids, pectin, and albumen. Blackberries go often by the name of "bumblekites," from "bumble," the cry of the bittern, and kyte, a Scotch word for belly; the name bumblekite being applied, says Dr. Prior, "from the rumbling and bumbling caused in the bellies of children who eat the fruit too greedily." "Rubus" is from the Latin ruber, red.

The blackberry has likewise acquired the name of scaldberry, from producing, as some say, the eruption known as scaldhead in children who eat the fruit to excess; or, as others suppose, from the curative effects of the leaves and berries in this malady of the scalp; or, again, from the remedial effects of the leaves when applied externally to scalds.

It has been said that the young shoots, eaten as a salad, will fasten loose teeth. If the leaves are gathered in the Spring and dried, then, when required, a handful of them may be infused in a pint of boiling water, and the infusion, when cool, may be taken, a teacupful at a time, to stay diarrhoea, and for some bleedings. Similarly, if an ounce of the bruised root is boiled in three half-pints of water, down to a pint, a teacupful of this may be given every three or four hours. The decoction is also useful against whooping-cough in its spasmodic stage. The bark contains tannin; and if an ounce of the same be boiled in a pint and a half of water, or of milk, down to a pint, half a teacupful of the decoction may be given every hour or two for staying relaxed bowels. Likewise the fruit, if desiccated in a moderately hot oven, and afterwards reduced to powder (which should be kept ill a well corked bottle) will prove an efficacious remedy for dysentery.

[55] Gerard says: "Bramble leaves heal the eyes that hang out, and stay the haemorrhoides [piles] if they can be laid thereunto." The London Pharmacopoeia (1696) declared the ripe berries of the bramble to be a great cordial, and to contain a notable restorative spirit. In Cruso's Treasury of Easy Medicines (1771), it is directed for old inveterate ulcers: "Take a decoction of blackberry leaves made in wine, and foment the ulcers with this whilst hot each night and morning, which will heal them, however difficult to be cured." The name of the bush is derived from brambel, or brymbyll, signifying prickly; its blossom as well as the fruit, ripe and unripe, in all stages, may be seen on the bush at the same time. With the ancient Greeks Blackberries were a popular remedy for gout.

As soon as blackberries are over-ripe, they become quite indigestible. Country folk say in Somersetshire and Sussex: "The devil goes round on Old Michaelmas Day, October 11th, to spite the Saint, and spits on the blackberries, so that they who eat them after that date fall sick, or have trouble before the year is out." Blackberry wine and blackberry jam are taken for sore throats in many rustic homes. Blackberry jelly is useful for dropsy from feeble ineffective circulation. To make "blackberry cordial," the juice should be expressed from the fresh ripe fruit, adding half a pound of white sugar to each quart thereof, together with half an ounce of both nutmeg and cloves; then boil these together for a short time, and add a little brandy to the mixture when cold.

In Devonshire the peasantry still think that if anyone is troubled with "blackheads," i.e., small pimples, or boils, he may be cured by creeping from East to West on the hands and knees nine times beneath an arched [56] bramble bush. This is evidently a relic of an old Dryad superstition when the angry deities who inhabited particular trees had to be appeased before the special diseases which they inflicted could be cured. It is worthy of remark that the Bramble forms the subject of the oldest known apologue. When Jonathan upbraided the men of Shechem for their base ingratitude to his father's house, he related to them the parable of the trees choosing a king, by whom the Bramble was finally elected, after the olive, the fig tree, and the vine had excused themselves from accepting this dignity.

In the Roxburghe Ballad of "The Children in the Wood," occurs the verse—

"Their pretty lips with Blackberries
Were all besmeared and dyed;
And when they saw the darksome night
They sat them down, and cryed."

The French name for blackberries is mûres sauvages, also mûres de haie; and in some of our provincial districts they are known as "winterpicks," growing on the Blag.

Blackberry wine, which is a trustworthy cordial astringent remedy for looseness of the bowels, may be made thus: Measure your berries, and bruise them, and to every gallon of the fruit add a quart of boiling water. Let the mixture stand for twenty-four hours, occasionally stirring; then strain off the liquid, adding to every gallon a couple of pounds of refined sugar, and keep it in a cask tightly corked till the following October, when it will be ripe and rich.

A noted hair-dye is said to be made by boiling the leaves of the bramble in strong lye, which then imparts permanently to the hair a soft, black colour. Tom Hood, in his humorous way, described a negro funeral [57] as "going a black burying." An American poet graphically tell us:—

"Earth's full of Heaven,
And every common bush afire with God!
But only they who see take off their shoes;
The rest sit round it, and—pluck blackberries."

BLUEBELL (Wild Hyacinth).

This,—the Agraphis mutans,—of the Lily tribe—is so abundant in English woods and pastures, whilst so widely known, and popular with young and old, as to need no description. Hyacinth petals are marked in general with dark spots, resembling in their arrangement the Greek word AI, alas! because a youth, beloved by Apollo, and killed by an ill-wind, was changed into this flower. But the wild Hyacinth bears no such character on its petals, and is therefore called "non-scriptus." The graceful curl of the petals, not their dark violet colour, has suggested to the poets "hyacinthine locks."

In Walton's Angler the Bluebell is mentioned as Culverkeys, the same as "Calverkeys" in Wiltshire. No particular medicinal uses have attached themselves to the wild Hyacinth flower as a herbal simple. The root is round, and was formerly prized for its abundant clammy juice given out when bruised, and employed as starch. Miss Pratt refers to this as poisonous; and our Poet Laureate teaches:—

"In the month when earth and sky are one,
To squeeze the blue bell 'gainst the adder's bite."

When dried and powdered, the root as a styptic is of special virtue to cure the whites of women: in doses of not more than three grains at a time. "There is [58] hardly," says Sir John Hill, "a more powerful remedy." Tennyson has termed the woodland abundance of Hyacinths in full spring time as "The heavens upbreaking through the earth." On the day of St. George, the Patron Saint of England, these wild hyacinths tinge the meadows and pastures with their deep blue colour—an emblem of the ocean empire, over which England assumes the rule.

But the chief charms of the Bluebell are its beauty and early appearance. Now is "the winter past; the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time for the singing of birds is come; and the voice of the turtle is heard in the land."

"This earth is one great temple, made
For worship everywhere;
The bells are flowers in sun and shade
Which ring the heart to prayer."

"The city bell takes seven days
To reach the townsman's ear;
But he who kneels in Nature's ways.
Has Sabbath all the year."

The Hairbell (Campanula rotundifolia) is the Bluebell of Scotland; and nothing rouses a Scot to anger more surely than to exhibit the wild Hyacinth as the true Bluebell.

BOG BEAN (or Marsh-trefoil).

The Buck-bean, or Bog-bean, which is common enough in stagnant pools, and on our spongy bogs, is the most serviceable of all known herbal tonics. It may be easily recognised growing in water by its large leaves overtopping the surface, each being composed of three leaflets, and resembling the leaf of a Windsor Broad Bean. The flowers when in bud are of a bright rose [59] color, and when fully blown they have the inner surface of their petals thickly covered with a white fringe, on which account the plant is known also as "white fluff." The name Buckbean is perhaps a corruption of scorbutus, scurvy; this giving it another title, "scurvy bean." And it is termed "goat's bean," perhaps from the French le bouc, "a he-goat." The plant flowers for a month and therefore bears the botanical designation, "Menyanthes" (trifoliata) from meen, "a month," and anthos, "a flower." It belongs to the Gentian tribe, each of which is distinguished by a tonic and appetizing bitterness of taste. The root of the Bog Bean is the most bitter part, and is therefore selected for medicinal use. It contains a chemical glucoside, "Menyanthin," which consists of glucose and a volatile product, "Menyanthol." For curative purposes druggists supply an infusion of the herb, and a liquid extract in combination with liquorice. These preparations are in moderate doses, strengthening and antiscorbutic; but when given more largely they are purgative and emetic. Gerard says if the plant "be taken with mead, or honied water, it is of use against a cough"; in which respect it is closely allied to the Sundew (another plant of the bogs) for relieving whooping-cough after the first feverish stage, or any similar hacking, spasmodic cough. A tincture is made (H.) from the whole plant with spirit of wine, and this proves most useful for clearing obscuration of the sight, when there is a sense, especially in the open-air, of a white vibrating mist before the eyes; and therefore it has been given with marked success in early stages of amaurotic paralysis of the retina. The dose should be three or four drops of the tincture with a tablespoonful of cold water three times in the day for a week at a time.

[60] BORAGE.

The Borage, with its gallant blue flower, is cultivated in our gardens as a pot herb, and is associated in our minds with bees and claret cup. It grows wild in abundance on open plains where the soil is favourable, and it has a long-established reputation for cheering the spirits. Botanically, it is the Borago officinalis, this title being a corruption of cor-ago, i.e., cor, the heart, ago, I stimulate—quia cordis affectibus medetur, because it cures weak conditions of the heart. An old Latin adage says: Borago ego gaudia semper ago—"I, Borage, bring always courage"; or the name may be derived from the Celtic, Borrach, "a noble person." This plant was the Bugloss of the older botanists, and it corresponds to our Common Bugloss, so called from the shape and bristly surface of its leaves, which resemble bous-glossa, the tongue of an ox. Chemically, the plant Borage contains potassium and calcium combined with mineral acids. The fresh juice affords thirty per cent., and the dried herb three per cent. of nitrate of potash. The stems and leaves supply much saline mucilage, which, when boiled and cooled, likewise deposits nitre and common salt. These crystals, when ignited, will burn with a succession of small sparkling explosions, to the great delight of the schoolboy. And it is to such saline qualities the wholesome, invigorating effects and the specially refreshing properties of the Borage are supposed to be mainly due. For which reason, the plant, "when taken in sallets," as says an old herbalist, "doth exhilarate, and make the mind glad," almost in the same way as a bracing sojourn by the seaside during an autumn holiday. The flowers possess cordial virtues which are very revivifying, and have been much commended against melancholic depression of the nervous system. Burton, in his [61] Anatomy of Melancholy (1676), wrote with reference to the frontispiece of that book:—

"Borage and Hellebore fill two scenes,
Sovereign plants to purge the veins
Of melancholy, and cheer the heart
Of those black fumes which make it smart;
The best medicine that God e'er made
For this malady, if well assaid."

"The sprigs of Borage," wrote John Evelyn, "are of known virtue to revive the hypochondriac and cheer the hard student."

According to Dioscorides and Pliny, the Borage was that famous nepenthe of Homer which Polydamas sent to Helen for a token "of such rare virtue that when taken steep'd in wine, if wife and children, father and mother, brother and sister, and all thy dearest friends should die before thy face, thou could'st not grieve, or shed a tear for them." "The bowl of Helen had no other ingredient, as most criticks do conjecture, than this of borage." And it was declared of the herb by another ancient author: Vinum potatum quo sit macerata buglossa moerorum cerebri dicunt auferre periti:—

"To enliven the sad with the joy of a joke,
Give them wine with some borage put in it to soak."

The Romans named the Borage Euphrosynon, because when put into a cup of wine it made the drinkers of the same merry and glad.

Parkinson says, "The seed of Borage helpeth nurses to have more store of milk, for which purpose its leaves are most conducing." Its saline constituents promote activity of the kidneys, and for this reason the plant is used in France to carry off catarrhs which are feverish. The fresh herb has a cucumber-like odour, and when compounded with lemon and sugar, added to wine and [62] water, it makes a delicious "cool tankard," as a summer drink. "A syrup concocted of the floures," said Gerard, "quieteth the lunatick person, and the leaves eaten raw do engender good blood." Of all nectar-loving insects, bees alone know how to pronounce the "open sesame" of admission to the honey pots of the Borage.

BROOM.

The Broom, or Link (Cytisus scoparius) is a leguminous shrub which is well known as growing abundantly on open places in our rural districts. The prefix "cytisus" is derived from the name of a Greek island where Broom abounded. It formerly bore the name of Planta Genista, and gave rise to the historic title, "Plantagenet." A sprig of its golden blossom was borne by Geoffrey of Anjou in his bonnet when going into battle, making him conspicuous throughout the strife. In the Ingoldsby Legends it is said of our second King Henry's headdress:—

"With a great sprig of broom, which he bore as a badge in it,
He was named from this circumstance, Henry Plantagenet."

The stalks of the Broom, and especially the topmost young twigs, are purgative, and act powerfully on the kidneys to increase the flow of urine. They contain chemically an acid principle, "scoparin," and an alkaloid, "sparteine." For medical purposes these terminal twigs are used (whether fresh or dried) to make a decoction which is of great use in dropsy from a weak heart, but it should not be given where congestion of the lungs is present. From half to one ounce by weight of the tops should be boiled down in a pint of water to half this quantity, and a wineglassful may be taken as a dose every four or six hours. For more chronic dropsy, a compound decoction of broom may be given with much [63] benefit. To make this, use broom-tops and dandelion roots, of each half an ounce, boiling them in a pint of water down to half a pint, and towards the last adding half an ounce of bruised juniper berries. When cold, the decoction should be strained and a wineglassful may be had three or four times a day. "Henry the Eighth, a prince of famous memory, was wonte to drinke the distilled water of broome flowers against surfeits and diseases therefrom arising." The flower-buds, pickled in vinegar, are sometimes used as capers; and the roasted seeds have been substituted for coffee. Sheep become stupefied or excited when by chance constrained to eat broom-tops.

The generic name, Scoparius, is derived from the Latin word scopa, a besom, this signifying "a shrub to sweep with." It has been long represented that witches delight to ride thereon: and in Holland, if a vessel lying in dock has a besom tied to the top of its mast, this advertises it as in search of a new owner. Hence has arisen the saying about a woman when seeking a second husband, Zij steetk't dem bezen, "She hangs out the broom."

There is a tradition in Suffolk and Sussex:—

"If you sweep the house with Broom in May,
You'll sweep the head of the house away."

Allied to the Broom, and likewise belonging to the Papilionaceous order of leguminous plants, though not affording any known medicinal principle, the Yellow Gorse (Ulex) or Furze grows commonly throughout England on dry exposed plains. It covers these during the flowering season with a gorgeous sheet of yellow blossoms, orange perfumed, and which entirely conceals the rugged brown unsightly branches beneath. Its elastic seed vessels burst with a crackling noise in hot [64] weather, and scatter the seeds on all sides. "Some," says Parkinson, "have used the flowers against the jaundice," but probably only because of their yellow colour. "The seeds," adds Gerard, "are employed in medicines against the stone, and the staying of the laske" (laxitas, looseness). They are certainly astringent, and contain tannin. In Devonshire the bush is called "Vuzz," and in Sussex "Hawth."

The Gorse is rare in Scotland, thriving best in our cool humid climate. In England it is really never out of blossom, not even after a severe frost, giving rise to the well-known saying "Love is never out of season except when the Furze is out of bloom." It is also known as Fursbush, Furrs and Whins, being crushed and given as fodder to cattle. The tender shoots are protected from being eaten by herbivorous animals in the same way as are the thistles and the holly, by the angles of the leaves having grown together so as to constitute prickles.

"'Twere to cut off an epigram's point,
Or disfurnish a knight of his spurs,
If we foolishly tried to disjoint
Its arms from the lance-bearing Furze."

Linnoeus "knelt before it on the sod: and for its beauty thanked his
God."

The Butcher's Broom, Ruscus (or Bruscus) aculeatus, or prickly, is a plant of the Lily order, which grows chiefly in the South of England, on heathy places and in woods. It bears sharp-pointed, stiff leaves (each of which produces a small solitary flower on its upper surface), and scarlet berries. The shrub is also known as Knee Hulyer, Knee Holly (confused with the Latin cneorum), Prickly Pettigrue and Jews' Myrtle. Butchers make besoms of its twigs, with which to sweep their stalls or [65] blocks: and these twigs are called "pungi topi," "prickrats," from being used to preserve meat from rats. Jews buy the same for service during the Feast of Tabernacles; and the boughs have been employed for flogging chilblains. The Butcher's Broom has been claimed by the Earls of Sutherland as the distinguishing badge of their followers and Clan, every Sutherland volunteer wearing a sprig of the bush in his bonnet on field days. This shrub is highly extolled as a free promoter of urine in dropsy and obstructions of the kidneys; a pint of boiling water should be poured on an ounce of the fresh twigs, or on half-an-ounce of the bruised root, to make an infusion, which may be taken as tea. The root is at first sweet to the taste, and afterwards bitter.

BRYONY.

English hedgerows exhibit Bryony of two distinct sorts—the white and the black—which differ much, the one from the other, as to medicinal properties, and which belong to separate orders of plants. The White Bryony is botanically a cucumber, being of common growth at our roadsides, and often called the White Vine; it also bears the name of Tetterberry, from curing a disease of the skin known as tetters. It climbs about with long straggling stalks, which attach themselves by spiral tendrils, and which produce rough, palmated leaves. Insignificant pale-green flowers spring in small clusters from the bottom of these leaves. The round berries are at first green, and afterwards brilliantly red. Chemically, the plant contains "bryonin," a medicinal substance which is intensely bitter; also malate and phosphate of lime, with gum, starch, and sugar.

A tincture is made (H.) from the fresh root collected before the plant flowers, which is found to [66] be of superlative use for the relief of chronic rheumatism (especially when aggravated by moving), and for subduing active congestions of the serous membranes which line the heart-bag, the ribs, the outer coat of the brain, and which cover the bowels. In the treatment of pleurisy, this tincture is invaluable. Four drops should be given in a tablespoonful of cold water every three or four hours. Also for any contused bruising of the skin, and especially for a black eye, to promptly bathe the injured part with a decoction of White Bryony root will speedily subdue the swelling, and will prevent discoloration far better than a piece of raw beef applied outside as the remedy most approved in the Ring.

In France, the White Bryony is deemed so potent and perilous, that its root is named the devil's turnip—navet du diable.

Our English plant, the Bryonia dioica, purges as actively as colocynth, if too freely administered.

The name Bryony is two thousand years old, and comes from a
Greek word bruein, "to shoot forth rapidly."

From the incised root of the White Bryony exudes a milky juice which is aperient of action, and which has been commended for epilepsy, as well as for obstructed liver and dropsy; also its tincture for chronic constipation.

The popular herbal drink known as Hop Bitters is said to owe many of its supposed virtues to the bryony root, substituted for the mandrake which it is alleged to contain. The true mandrake is a gruesome herb, which was held in superstitious awe by the Greeks and the Romans. Its root was forked, and bears some resemblance to the legs of a man; for which reason the moneymakers [67] of the past increased the likeness, and attributed supernatural powers to the plant. It was said to grow only beneath a murderer's gibbet, and when torn from the earth by its root to utter a shriek which none might hear and live. From earliest times, in the East, a notion prevailed that the mandrake would remove sterility. With which purpose in view, Rachel said to Leah: "Give me, I pray thee, of thy son's mandrakes" (Genesis xxx. v. 14). In later times the Bryony has come into use instead of the true mandrake, and it has continued to form a profitable spurious article with mountebank doctors. In Henry the Eighth's day, ridiculous little images made from Bryony roots, cut into the figure of a man, and with grains of millet inserted into the face as eyes, the same being known as pappettes or mammettes, were accredited with magical powers, and fetched high prices with simple folk. Italian ladies have been known to pay as much as thirty golden ducats for one of these artificial mandrakes. Readers of Thalaba (Southey) will remember the fine scene in which Khawla procures this plant to form part of the waxen figure of the Destroyer. Unscrupulous vendors of the fraudulent articles used to seek out a thriving young Bryony plant, and to open the earth round it. Then being prepared with a mould such as is used for making Plaster of Paris figures, they fixed it close to the root, and fastened it with wire to keep it in place. Afterwards, by filling the earth up to the root they left it to assume the required shape, which was generally accomplished in a single summer.

The medicinal tincture (H.) of White Bryony (Bryonia alba) is of special service to persons of dark hair and complexion, with firm fibre of flesh, and of a bilious cross-grained temperament. Also it is of [68] particular use for relieving coughs, and colds of a feverish bronchial sort, caught by exposure to the east wind. On the contrary, the catarrhal troubles of sensitive females, and of young children, are better met by Ipecacuanha:—

"Coughing in a shady grove
Sat my Juliana,
Lozenges I gave my love,
Ipecacuanha—
Full twenty from the lozenge box
The greedy nymph did pick;
Then, sighing sadly, said to me—
My Damon, I am sick."
George Canning.

THYRSIS ET PHYLLIS.
In nemore umbroso Phyllis mea forte sedebat,
Cui mollem exhausit tussis anhela sinum:
Nec mora: de loculo deprompsi pyxida loevo,
Ipecacuaneos, exhibuique trochos:
Illa quidem imprudens medicatos leniter orbes
Absorpsit numero bisque quaterque decem:
Tum tenero ducens suspiria pectore dixit,
"Thyrsi! Mihi stomachum nausea tristis habet."

The Black Bryony (Lady's-seal, or Oxberry), which likewise grows freely in our hedges, is quite a different plant from its nominal congener. It bears the name of Tamus Vulgaris, and belongs to the natural order of Yams. It is also called the Wild Hop, and Tetterberry or Tetterwort (in common with the greater Celandine), because curing the skin disease known as tetters; and further, Blackbindweed. It has smooth heart-shaped leaves, and produces scarlet, elliptical berries larger than those of the White Bryony. A tincture is made (H.) from the root-stock, with spirit of wine, which proves a most useful application to unbroken chilblains, when [69] made into a lotion with water, one part to twenty. The plant is called Black Bryony (Bryonia nigra) from its dark leaves and black root. It is not given at all internally, but the acrid pulp of the root has been used as a stimulating plaster.

BUCKTHORN.

The common Buckthorn grows in our woods and thickets, and used to be popularly known because of the purgative syrup made from its juice and berries. It bears dense branches of small green flowers, followed by the black berries, which purge violently. If gathered before they are ripe they furnish a yellow dye. When ripe, if mixed with gum arabic and lime water, they form the pigment called "Bladder Green." Until late in the present century— O dura ilia messorum!—English rustics, when requiring an aperient dose for themselves or their children, had recourse to the syrup of Buckthorn. But its action was so severe, and attended with such painful gripings, that as time went on the medicine was discarded, and it is now employed in this respect almost exclusively by the cattle doctor. Dodoeus taught about Buckthorn berries: "They be not meet to be administered but to young and lusty people of the country, which do set more store of their money than their lives." The shrub grows chiefly on chalk, and near brooks. The name Buckthorn is from the German buxdorn, boxthorn, hartshorn. In Anglo-Saxon it was Heorot-bremble. It is also known as Waythorn, Rainberry Thorn, Highway Thorn and Rhineberries. Each of the berries contains four seeds: and the flesh of birds which eat thereof is said to be purgative. When the juice is given medicinally it causes a bad stomach-ache, with much dryness of the throat: for which reason Sydenham [70] always ordered a basin of soup to be given after it. Chemically the active principle of the Buckthorn is "rhamno-cathartine." Likewise a milder kind of Buckthorn, which is much more useful as a Simple, grows freely in England, the Rhamnus frangula or so-called "black berry-bearing Alder," though this appellation is a mistake, because botanically the Alder never bears any berries. This black Buckthorn is a slender shrub, which occurs in our woods and thickets. The juice of its berries is aperient, without being irritating, and is well suited as a laxative for persons of delicate constitution. It possesses the merit of continuing to answer in smaller doses after the patient has become habituated to its use. The berry of the _Rhamnus frangula _may be known by its containing only two seeds. Country people give the bark boiled in ale for jaundice; and this bark is the black dogwood of gunpowder makers. Lately a certain aperient medicine has become highly popular with both doctors and patients in this country, the same being known as Cascara Sagrada. It is really an American Buckthorn, the Rhamnus Persiana, and it possesses no true advantage over our black Alder Buckthorn, though the bark of this latter must be used a year old, or it will cause griping. A fluid extract of the English mild Buckthorn, or of the American Cascara, is made by our leading druggists, of which from half to one teaspoonful may be given for a dose. This is likewise a tonic to the intestines, and is especially useful for relieving piles. Lozenges also of the Alder Buckthorn are dispensed under the name of "Aperient Fruit Lozenges;" one, or perhaps two, being taken for a dose as required.

There is a Sea Buckthorn, Hippophoe, which belongs to a different natural order, Eloeagnaceoe, a low shrubby tree, [71] growing on sandhills and cliffs, and called also Sallowthorn. The fruit is made (in Tartary) into a pleasant jelly, because of its acid flavour, and used in the Gulf of Bothnia for concocting a fish sauce.

The name signifies "giving light to a horse," being conferred because of a supposed power to cure equine blindness; or it may mean "shining underneath," in allusion to the silvery underside of the leaf.

The old-fashioned Cathartic Buckthorn of our hedges and woods has spinous thorny branchlets, from which its name, Rhamnus, is thought to be derived, because the shrub is set with thorns like as the ram. At one time this Buckthorn was a botanical puzzle, even to Royalty, as the following lines assure us:—

"Hicum, peridicum; all clothed in green;
The King could not tell it, no more could the Queen;
So they sent to consult wise men from the East.
Who said it had horns, though it was not a beast."

BURNET SAXIFRAGE (see Pimpernel).

BUTTERCUP.

The most common Buttercup of our fields (Ranunculus bulbosis) needs no detailed description. It belongs to the order termed Ranunculaceoe, so-called from the Latin rana, a frog, because the several varieties of this genus grow in moist places where frogs abound. Under the general name of Buttercups are included the creeping Ranunculus, of moist meadows; the Ranunculus acris, Hunger Weed, or Meadow Crowfoot, so named from the shape of the leaf (each of these two being also called King Cup), and the Ranunculus bulbosus mentioned above. "King-Cob" signifies a resemblance between the unexpanded flowerbud and [72] a stud of gold, such as a king would wear; so likewise the folded calyx is named Goldcup, Goldknob and Cuckoobud. The term Buttercup has become conferred through a mistaken notion that this flower gives butter a yellow colour through the cows feeding on it (which is not the case), or, perhaps, from the polished, oily surface of the petals. The designation really signifies "button cop," or bouton d'or; "the batchelor's button"; this terminal syllable, cup, being corrupted from the old English word "cop," a head. It really means "button head." The Buttercup generally is known in Wiltshire and the adjoining counties as Crazy, or Crazies, being reckoned by some as an insane plant calculated to produce madness; or as a corruption of Christseye (which was the medieval name of the Marigold).

A burning acridity of taste is the common characteristic of the several varieties of the Buttercup. In its fresh state the ordinary field Buttercup is so acrimonious that by merely pulling up the plant by its root, and carrying it some little distance in the hand, the palm becomes reddened and inflamed. Cows will not eat it unless very hungry, and then the mouth of the animal becomes sore and blistered. The leaves of the Buttercup, when bruised and applied to the skin, produce a blistering of the outer cuticle, with a discharge of a watery fluid, and with heat, redness, and swelling. If these leaves are masticated in the mouth they will induce pains like a stitch between the ribs at the side, with the sharp catchings of neuralgic rheumatism. A medicinal tincture is made (H.) from the bulbous Buttercup with spirit of wine, which will, as a similar, cure shingles very expeditiously, both the outbreak of small watery pimples clustered together at the side, and the accompanying sharp pains between the ribs. Also this tincture will [73] promptly relieve neuralgic side-ache, and pleurisy which is of a passive sort. From six to eight drops of the tincture may be taken with a tablespoonful of cold water by an adult three or four times a day for either of the aforesaid purposes. In France, this plant is called "jaunet." Buttercups are most probably the "Cuckoo Buds" immortalised by Shakespeare. The fresh leaves of the Crowfoot (Ranunculus acris) formed a part of the famous cancer cure of Mr. Plunkett in 1794. This cure comprised Crowfoot leaves, freshly gathered, and dog's-foot fennel leaves, of each an ounce, with one drachm of white arsenic levigated, and with five scruples of flowers of sulphur, all beaten together into a paste, and dried by the sun in balls, which were then powdered, and, being mixed with yolk of egg, were applied on pieces of pig's bladder. The juice of the common Buttercup (Bulbosus), known sometimes as "St. Anthony's Turnip," if applied to the nostrils, will provoke sneezing, and will relieve passive headache in this way. The leaves have been applied as a blister to the wrists in rheumatism, and when infused in boiling water as a poultice over the pit of the stomach as a counter-irritant. For sciatica the tincture of the bulbous buttercup has proved very helpful.

The Ranunculus flammata, Spearwort, has been used to produce a slight blistering effect by being put under a limpet shell against the skin of the part to be relieved, until some smarting and burning have been sensibly produced, with incipient vesication of the outermost skin.

The Ranunculus Sceleratus, Marsh Crowfoot, or Celery-leaved Buttercup, called in France "herbe sardonique," and "grenouillette d'eau," when made into a tincture (H.) with spirit of wine, and given in small diluted doses, proves curative of stitch in the side, and of neuralgic pains between the ribs, likewise of pleurisy without [74] feverishness. The dose should be five drops of the third decimal tincture with a spoonful of water every three or four hours. This plant grows commonly at the sides of our pools, and in wet ditches, bearing numerous small yellow flowers, with petals scarcely longer than the calyx.

CABBAGE.

"The time has come," as the walrus said in Alice and the Looking
Glass, "to talk of many things"—

"Of shoes, and ships, and sealing-wax; of Cabbages, and
kings."

The Cabbage, which is fabled to have sprung from the tears of the Spartan lawgiver, Lycurgus, began as the Colewort, and was for six hundred years, according to Pliny and Cato, the only internal remedy used by the Romans. The Ionians had such a veneration for Cabbages that they swore by them, just as the Egyptians did by the onion. With ourselves, the wild Cabbage, growing on our English sea cliffs, is the true Collet, or Colewort, from which have sprung all our varieties of Cabbage—cauliflower, greens, broccoli, etc. No vegetables were grown for the table in England before the time of Henry the Eighth. In the thirteenth century it was the custom to salt vegetables because they were so scarce; and in the sixteenth century a Cabbage from Holland was deemed a choice present.

The whole tribe of Cabbages is named botanically Brassicaceoe— apo tou brassein—because they heat, or ferment.

By natural order they are cruciferous plants; and all contain much nitrogen, or vegetable albumen, with a considerable quantity of sulphur; hence they tend strongly to putrefaction, and when decomposed their odour is very offensive. Being cut into pieces, and pressed close in a tub with aromatic herbs and salt, so as to undergo an acescent fermentation (which is [75] arrested at that stage), Cabbages form the German Saurkraut, which is strongly recommended against scurvy. The white Cabbage is most putrescible; the red most emollient and pectoral. The juice of the red cabbage made into syrup, without any condiments, is useful in chronic coughs, and in bronchial asthma. The leaves of the common white Cabbage, when gently bruised and applied to a blistered surface, will promote a free discharge, as also when laid next the skin in dropsy of the ankles. All the Coleworts are called "Crambe," from krambos, dry, because they dispel drunkenness.

"There is," says an old author, "a natural enmitie between the Colewort and the vine, which is such that the vine, if growing near unto it, withereth and perisheth; yea, if wine be poured into the Colewort while it is boiling, it will not be any more boiled, and the colour thereof will be quite altered." The generic term Colewort is derived from caulis, a stalk, and wourte, as applied to all kinds of herbs that "do serve for the potte." "Good worts," exclaimed Falstaff, catching at Evans' faulty pronunciation of words,—"good worts,"—"good cabbages." An Irish cure for sore throat is to tie Cabbage leaves round it; and the same remedy is applied in England with hot Cabbage leaves for a swollen face. In the Island of Jersey coarse Cabbages are grown abundantly on patches of roadside ground, and in corners of fields, the stalks of which attain the height of eight, ten, or more feet, and are used for making walking sticks or cannes en tiges de choux. These are in great demand on the island, and are largely exported. It may be that a specially tall cabbage of this sort gave rise to the Fairy tale of "Jack and the bean stalk." The word Cabbage bears reference [76] to caba (caput), a head, as signifying a Colewort which forms a round head. Kohl rabi, from caulo-rapum, cabbage turnip, is a name given to the Brassica oleracea. In 1595 the sum of twenty shillings was paid for six Cabbages and a few carrots, at the port of Hull, by the purveyor to the Clifford family.

The red Cabbage is thought in France to be highly anti-scorbutic; and a syrup is made from it with this purpose in view. The juice of white Cabbage leaves will cure warts.

The Brassica oleracea is one of the plants used in Count Mattaei's vaunted nostrum, "anti-scrofuloso." This, the sea Cabbage, with its pale clusters of handsome yellow flowers, is very ornamental to our cliffs. Its leaves, which are conspicuously purple, have a bitter taste when uncooked, but become palatable for boiling if first repeatedly washed; and they are sold at Dover as a market vegetable. These should be boiled in two waters, of which the first will be made laxative, and the second, or thicker decoction, astringent, which fact was known to Hippocrates, who said "jus caulis solvit cujus substantia stringit."

Sir Anthony Ashley brought the Cabbage into English cultivation. It is said a Cabbage is sculptured at his feet on his monument in Wimbourne Minster, Dorset. He imported the Cabbage (Cale) from Cadiz (Cales), where he held a command, and grew rich by seizing other men's possessions, notably by appropriating some jewels entrusted to his care by a lady. Hence he is said to have got more by Cales (Cadiz) than by Cale (Cabbage); and this is, perhaps, the origin of our term "to cabbage." Among tailors, this phrase "to cabbage" is a cant saying which means to filch the cloth when cutting out for a customer. Arbuthnot writes "Your [77] tailor, instead of shreds, cabbages whole yards of cloth." Perhaps the word comes from the French cabasser, to put into a basket.

From the seed of the wild Cabbage (Rape, or Navew) rape-seed oil is extracted, and the residue is called rape-cake, or oil-cake.

Some years ago it was customary to bake bread-rolls wrapped in Cabbage leaves, for imparting what was considered an agreeable flavour. John Evelyn said: "In general, Cabbages are thought to allay fumes, and to prevent intoxication; but some will have them noxious to the sight." After all it must be confessed the Cabbage is greatly to be accused for lying undigested in the stomach, and for provoking eructations; which makes one wonder at the veneration the ancients had for it, calling the tribe divine, and swearing per brassicam, which was for six hundred years held by the Romans a panacea: though "Dis crambee thanatos"—"Death by twice Cabbage"—was a Greek proverb. Gerard says the Greeks called the Cabbage Amethustos, "not only because it driveth away drunkennesse; but also for that it is like in colour to the pretious stone called the amethyst." The Cabbage was Pompey's best beloved dish. To make a winter salad it is customary in America to choose a firm white Cabbage, and to shred it very fine, serving it with a dressing of plain oil and vinegar. This goes by the name of "slaw," which has a Dutch origin.

The free presence of hydrogen and sulphur causes a very strong and unpleasant smell to pervade the house during the cooking of Cabbages. Nevertheless, this sulphur is a very salutary constituent of the vegetable, most useful in scurvy and scrofula. Partridge and Cabbage suit the patrician table; bacon and Cabbage [78] better please the taste and the requirements of the proletarian. The nitrogen of this and other cruciferous plants serves to make them emit offensive stinks when they lie out of doors and rot.

For the purulent scrofulous ophthalmic inflammation of infants, by cleansing the eyes thoroughly every half-hour with warm water, and then packing the sockets each time with fresh Cabbage leaves cleaned and bruised to a soft pulp, the flow of matter will be increased for a few days, but a cure will be soon effected. Pliny commended the juice of the raw Cabbage with a little honey for sore and inflamed eyes which were moist and weeping, but not for those which were dry and dull.

In Kent and Sussex, when a Cabbage is cut and the stalk left in the ground to produce "greens" for the table, a cottager will carve an x on the top flat surface of the upright stalk, and thus protect it against mischievous garden sprites and demons.